Andries van Helden, inspector of education, and Ellen Allewijn, student ofphilosophy and history of education at the Catholic University of Nijmegen,wrote Chapters 1, 2, 4 and 5.

Chapter 3 was written by SLO (Netherlands Institute for CurriculumDevelopment).

The text boxes in Chapter 2 were copied from the AEDE manual for thepromotion of active European citizenship. Ton Remmers (SLO) prepared thetext boxes in Chapter 3. Mineke Laman and Ingrid Wijgh, inspectors ofeducation, wrote the text boxes in Chapter 4.

Special thanks go out to:- Dick Lageweg of the Netherlands National Commission for UNESCO, for

developing and preparing the expert meeting that provided the foundation forChapter 4,

- Kirsten Stamm and Sigrid van der Ploeg of Europees Platform (EuropeanPlatform for Dutch Education) for preparing and organizing the meeting;

- Ruud Veldhuis of the Instituut for Publiek en Politiek (Dutch Centre forPolitical Participation) for chairing that meeting,

- and, especially, all of its participants from fourteen different Europeancountries, who provided invaluable input to this booklet but cannot be heldresponsible for the way in which we have assembled and interpreted theirdiscussions.

Citizenship - made in Europe:living together starts at school

3

in the 21st century and of the role ofeducation in the formation of citizens.

Against this background, I put the theme“education and citizenship” high on myagenda, both in the national sphere andin relation to the Dutch Presidency of theEuropean Union. The upcomingpresidency gave me the occasion to carryout a study into the ways in which, withinthe various member states, thecontribution of education to training foractive citizenship is given shape.

This study will be of use when I presentmy fellow-ministers of education withinthe European Union with proposals forfurther European co-operation in thefield of education and citizenship. I am,therefore, obliged to the authors of thestudy for the sound basis they providedfor our future policies.

Of old, education in all member states ofthe European Union also paid attentionto the formation of young people to goodcitizens. Most societies were thenrelatively transparent; thus, teacherswere not too hard put when determiningwhat the concept of “citizenship” shouldimply.

In the second half of the 20th century,however, a number of developmentsbrought about rather radical changes inEurope. These changes occurred on thecultural, social, economic and politicallevel. Society nowadays expectssomething different from the citizen.Education itself is changing; youngpeople learn in a much more active waythan in the old days.

The European Council, through itsambitious plan to modernize theeconomic, the social and the educationalsystems, has formulated an answer tochanging circumstances; the Lisbonprocess. This explicitly states thequestion of the significance of citizenship

Maria J. A. van der Hoeven,Minister of Education, Culture and Science

Foreword

4

Table of contents

5

Foreword 3Table of contents 4

1 The need to learn to live together 61.1 Society 61.1.1 Social cohesion 61.1.2 Citizenship 81.2 Historical precedents 91.3 Present trends 10

2 Learning to live together: the European perspective 16

2.1 The long policy cycle 162.2 UNESCO 172.2.1 The Delors Commission 182.2.2 Learning to live together 182.3 Organization for Economic Co-operation

and Development (OECD) 192.3.1 Social capital: the state of the art 192.3.2 Indicators for civic knowledge 202.3.3 Definition and Selection of Competencies

(DeSeCo) 202.3.4 Dublin 2004 202.4 Council of Europe 212.4.1 The Council of Europe's competencies 212.4.2 Learning to live together at the Council of Europe 212.4.3 Education for Democratic Citizenship 1997-2000 21

2.4.4 Education in the responsibilities of the individual 232.4.5 Civic education and terrorism 232.4.6 Budapest 1999 232.4.7 Cracow 2000 242.4.8 The 2002 Recommendation on Education

for Democratic Citizenship 252.4.9 Intercultural education 262.4.10 Education for Democratic Citizenship 2001-2004 262.5 European Union 302.5.1 Modes of action 302.5.2 Learning to live together in the European Union 302.5.3 Learning for active citizenship 322.6 Concluding remarks on the EU 38

3 The national perspective 453.1 Diversity of approaches 463.2 European policies aimed at promoting

citizenship education 463.2.1 Expected results 473.2.2 Regulatory instruments 473.2.3 Instruments for implementation 483.2.4 Definition of contents 483.3 Trends in government influence on the curriculum 493.4 The effects of learning to live together 503.4.1 Effect studies in France 503.4.2 Longitudinal study in England 503.4.3 International comparative studies 51

4 The school perspective 664.1 Objectives 674.1.1 Intended outcomes 674.1.2 Learning goals 684.2 The learning process 694.2.1 Methods 724.3 The environment of the school 754.3.1 Involving the parents 764.3.2 Interaction with the community 774.3.3 Handling the virtual neighbourhood 784.4 Resources 794.4.1 Instructional devices 794.4.2 Teaching staff 794.4.3 School organization 814.5 Assessing and evaluating learning to live together 824.5.1 Key principles 824.6 The dynamics of learning to live together initiatives 834.7 The viability and sustainability of citizenship

education in schools 874.8 Food for thought 89

5 Synthesis and conclusion 1035.1 The social cohesion deficit 1035.1.1 Rising awareness 1035.1.2 Strategic analyses 1035.1.3 Political action 1045.2 Obstacles 104

5.2.1 The awareness gap 1045.2.2 The compliance gap 1045.2.3 The knowledge gaps 1045.3 Generating and diffusing

knowledge and experience 1055.4 The European dimension 1055.4.1 Learning to live together is

a common issue 1055.4.2 Learning to live together is

a Lisbon issue 1055.5 Scope for synergy 106

Appendix 1 107The Treaty on European Union

Appendix 2 108Working group on Basic skills, foreign language teaching and entrepreneurship

Appendix 3 109Formal curriculum provisions for EDC in Europe

Bibliography 123

personal trust among strangers and trustin public and private institutions.

Relying on the OECD definition, the IrishForum study on the policy implications ofsocial capital provides a practical and“user-friendly” example of how the termis used at a local level in the Cork CountyDevelopment Board:

‘The concept of social capital soundsabstract, but it couldn’t be simpler, doyou trust people? How many clubs, societiesor social groups are you a member of? If your child gets sick do you havesupport to call on? Basically, how muchsocial contact do you have in your life?These social ties, according to research,will help you to live longer and areprobably worth money to the economy.’ 5

This quote brings out the virtues that areascribed to social capital and socialcohesion. Rather than just a mechanismfor coping with the complexity and diversityof modern society, social cohesion isviewed as a resource of welfare, to the

extent that it should be invested in and isexpected to yield measurable returns. Asthe World Bank puts it,

‘increasing evidence shows that socialcohesion is critical for societies to prospereconomically and for development to besustainable. Social capital is not just thesum of the institutions that underpin asociety – it is the glue that holds themtogether’.6

Social cohesion or social capital?To some analysts social cohesion and socialcapital are identical or closely related.Like social cohesion, ‘social capital refersto the norms and networks that facilitatecollective action’.7 For our presentpurposes, however, it seems expedient to distinguish the two concepts. Socialcapital is a property of social networks.Such networks may be local, such as thenetwork of frequenters of a neighbourhoodpub , or global, such as the “Republic ofScience”, spanning the Planet. Socialcohesion, on the other hand, is usuallydetermined with reference to a specific

unit of societal organization: a community,a city or a nation. The social cohesionthat characterizes a given society doesnot necessarily coincide with the sum ofthe social capitals present in the networksin that society. It is rather their result,which may turn out to be less than theirsum, depending on the pattern of thetrust and co-operation relationships thatdefine the networks. Even if high trustrelationships exist within various separatenetworks in a society, representing hugemasses of social capital, the net resulting

6

1.1 Society Human beings depend on one another fortheir survival. Wherever people live toge-ther, in a family or in larger communities,they develop habits, behaviour, ways oflife and institutions that enable them tolive together in a way that contributesnot just to their individual welfare butalso to the welfare of the group as a whole.

Wherever communities increase in scaleand start mixing and overlapping incomplex patterns, they develop intosocieties. Societies consist of numeroussub-communities and tend to develop alarge degree of internal diversity.Individuals do not always know eachother personally and develop differentinterests, habits and values.

1.1.1 Social cohesionFor people to live together in complexsocieties, sophisticated ways of life andinstitutions are required. If complexsocieties are to be viable, their membersmust develop knowledge, skills andattitudes that enable them to collaborate

with a broad range of fellow-members.They must be prepared and equipped tounderstand each other, even if they donot necessarily agree. They must beprepared and equipped to trust eachother, even if they are different and mayhave opposite interests. They must beprepared and equipped to engender trustby taking responsibility for commoninterests, even if those who benefit fromtheir individual actions are not personalacquaintances. They must also devise waysof organizing trust in common institutions,such as laws, currency, communicationand democratic governance. Finally, theymust be prepared and able to defend andwarrant trust by supporting commoninstitutions such as law enforcementagencies. In short, viable societies arecharacterized by a high degree of socialcohesion.

Various conceptions of social cohesionexist. In line with the “welfarist” traditionset by T.H. Marshall,1 Europeaninstitutions have adopted the habit ofthinking of social cohesion in terms of

the instruments that are considered to beexpedient to promote it, such as economicconvergence and social protection. Theapproach to social cohesion of theEuropean Union and the Council of Europehas essentially consisted of addressingsocial and economic inequalities.2

More essentially, however, social cohesionrefers to the quality and quantity of thetrust and responsibility relationshipsexisting in a society, both among itsmembers and between them and theirinstitutions.3 This conception of socialcohesion approaches those of the OECDand the World Bank. These organisationstend to conflate the concepts of socialcohesion and social capital. In a recentOECD study, The Well-being of Nations,social capital is defined as “networkstogether with shared norms, values andunderstandings that facilitate co-operationwithin or among groups”.4 Here, trust isconsidered a crucial component of socialcapital. In the study, three types of trustrelationships are distinguished: inter-personal trust among familiars, inter-

1 The need to learn to live together

1 Marshall 1949/1965.2 Social cohesion comes under the European Economic and

Social Committee of the European Union and under theEuropean Committee for Social Cohesion of the Council ofEurope.

3 Gellner 1988: 145.4 OECD 2001: 41.5 National Economic and Social Forum 2003: 37.6 World Bank a.7 Woolcock 2000: 5.

7

societies. Citizenship is a product ofculture. Like a language, it cannot beinherited but must be mastered again byeach new generation. If a generationskips the transmission of citizenship, itwill be lost and may take generations tobe reinvented.

The consciousness of being a citizen, theawareness of being part of society, ofdepending on its institutions for survivaland of being responsible for the survivalof society is a complex state of a citizen'smindset. Unlike one's mother tongue,such awareness must be purposefullytransmitted. The citizen's knowledge, hissavoir faire and behaviour must be learned.

Even the citizens' appetite for learning tolive together, their willingness to regardthemselves simultaneously as autonomousindividuals and as part of society atlarge, must be acquired. Social cohesionrequires a continuous investment in thehearts and minds of each new generationof future members of society.

Learning citizenshipIn his Republic Plato suggested that theinterests of the state are preserved bestif the individuals who will be responsiblefor preserving it (the guardians) are raisedand educated by society as a whole, ratherthan by their parents.15 In a democraticsociety, however, where all citizens bearresponsibility for preserving the state,this is hardly feasible. We must assumethat here parents bear the primaryresponsibility for imparting citizenship toyoung people. Being themselves citizens,they can be expected to transfer thenorms and values that go with it to their

children. Parents are in fact prepared tofulfil this role. As the European Parents'Association puts it:

‘Raising and educating our children is acrucial investment for the continuingfuture of the European society. Parents,as primary educators, have a vital role incontributing to and ensuring the develop-ment of responsible citizens in accordancewith moral and democratic values.’ 16

However, in complex societies, not allparents always manage to educate citizenswithout assistance on the part of societyas a whole. This is especially true whensocieties undergo rapid changes,requiring a recalibration of citizenship.When a new generation grows up in asociety that fundamentally differs fromthe society in which their parents wereraised, additional efforts on the part ofsociety are needed to define and furthersocial cohesion. This is where educationcomes in.

1.2 Historical precedentsIn past centuries, societies turned toeducation to deal with their increasingcomplexity. In the nineteenth century,nation states replaced more traditionalforms of society in many parts of Europe.Important educationalists such asFrançois Guizot clearly recognized thatthe viability of the new societiesdepended on their cohesion, in turndepending on the calibre of thecitizenship of their populations. Theyconsidered that the transmission ofnorms and values could no longer be leftto tradition and chance but requireddeliberate collective action. They set up

systems of popular education, not just todevelop the skills of literacy andnumeracy, but most of all to instil inyoung people the common attitudes andvalues considered necessary to a societyin which broader and broader circles ofthe population were entering public life.17

The nineteenth-century educationaliststhus laid the foundations for our successful,modern, participatory societies.

The World Wars and the Cold War made itpainfully clear that the success of theEuropean nation states was only partial.The sophistication of economic and socialcohesion they had achieved fell short ofwarranting cohesion on a continental scale.It turned out that cohesion as engineeredby nation states could be usurped andabused for non-cohesive purposes.

Having learned their lesson, Europeannations have since been at the forefrontin raising both social and economiccohesion to a higher level. The EuropeanUnion emanated from the idea that thecohesive factors that were so far developedin the nation states should be transformed,

8 Aristotle 1944: 187.9 Cf. Janoski 1998: 7.10 Fukuyama 1999: 14-15.11 Fukuyama's insistence on shared experiences, for example,risks being construed as a plea for uniformity, essentiallycontradicting Aristotle's idea that diversity is needed to keep theship afloat.12 Morin 2001: 88.13 Spinoza 2000: 254.14 Veldhuis & Ostermann 1997: 7.15 Plato 1974: 121.16 European Parents' Association a.17 Glenn 1988: 44.

98

social cohesion for the society that includessuch networks may be low or even negative,as we have seen in the former Yugoslavia.

Local cohesion and European cohesionSince in the following our vantage pointis the wellbeing of societies, the presentbooklet focuses on social cohesion ratherthan social capital. Social cohesion maybe determined for different levels ofsocial organization: for a local community,for a nation, for a continent, and even forthe Planet. The perspective adopted hereis the European one.

As will be discussed below, social cohesionon the local level tends to be conduciveto social cohesion at higher levels. Thiswill also be our basic assumption. However,it is theoretically possible that there aretypes of cohesion at a lower level that notjust fail to contribute to social cohesionat a higher level but even detract from it.As we have adopted a Europeanperspective, local cohesion that detractsfrom cohesion at a higher level will notbe regarded as social cohesion. Any localtrust and responsibility relationships thathinder or prejudice any trust andresponsibility relationships extendingacross local, regional and nationaldivides are not considered to contributeto social cohesion at the European level.

1.1.2 CitizenshipUnlike glue, social cohesion is not asubstance. The members of a societyjointly determine its social cohesionthrough their actions. The actions of anindividual usually follow certain patterns,constituting behaviour. It is believed thatan individual's behaviour is determined

by his or her attitudes, beliefs and values.Social cohesion in a society is, then,enhanced by two particular attitudes: the individual members' commitment to the wellbeing of fellow-members ofthe society and their commitment to thefunctioning of the institutions of thesociety. These commitments are revealedby the extent of their loyalty to andparticipation in the public institutionsand by the extent of their taking personalresponsibility for their fellow-citizens andthe public cause in their private and workinglives. The degree to which a member ofsociety takes these commitments seriouslydetermines his or her citizenship.

Unlike social cohesion, citizenship is not anovel concept. The relationship betweenthe citizen and the state was a topic inancient Athens. Aristotle required a citizento participate actively in public institutionsand to be governed by them. He comparescitizens to sailors and the state, i.e., theinstitutions of society, to a ship.

‘Although sailors differ from each otherin function – one is an oarsman, anothera helmsman, another a lookout man, andanother has some other similar specialdesignation – (…) there will also be acommon definition of excellence that willapply alike to all of them; for security innavigation is the business of them all,since each of the sailors aims at that.Similarly therefore with the citizens,although they are dissimilar from oneanother, their business is the security oftheir community, and this community isthe constitution, so that the goodness ofa citizen must necessarily be relative tothe constitution of the state.’8

Later on, sociologists developed ideasabout mutual relationships among citizens.Durkheim considered that in a “civicculture” a “mechanic solidarity” couldinduce citizens to take care of each other,even without intervention on the part ofthe state.9 Fukuyama follows up on this,observing that ‘… true communities arebound by the values, norms and experiences shared among their members.The deeper and more strongly held thosecommon values are, the stronger thesense of community is.’10

To avoid discussions that are not relevantto our present purposes,11 we may agree onthe following “lean” definition of citizen-ship, which, however incomplete, coversprecisely the aspects that are relevanthere: citizenship is what an individualcitizen contributes to social cohesion.

Such citizenship is both a prerequisite forand a consequence of democratic institu-tions. As Edgar Morin puts it, ‘… democracyis more than a political regime; it is thecontinuous regeneration of a complexretroacting loop: citizens produce thedemocracy that produces citizens’. 12

Citizenship: nature or nurture?Spinoza considered there to be no naturalbasis for citizenship.13 Others assumethat citizenship rests upon an essentiallyinborn quality of human beings. ‘Thecreation and preservation of a feeling ofsocial unity is one of the elementaryhuman needs. Once existent, it can becarried over to larger units.’14 However,all agree that any inborn “citizenshippotential” does not automatically equipindividuals for living together in complex

concern in nearly all Member States of theEuropean Union at the decline in voterparticipation in European Parliamentaryelections.23 This suggests that theEuropean citizens' citizenship not only failsto absorb the European dimension but isalso losing ground.

There are reasons to believe that the declinein trust and participation in Europe is asymptom of “social disengagement”, thegeneral decline in trust and involvementin public institutions and participation incommunity life, which affects not justEurope but many parts of the westernworld.24 According to some analysts, weare facing a growing civic deficit.25 If thisanalysis is correct, European societies areheading for an uphill battle in furtheringEuropean citizenship. At a time when aconsiderable sophistication of citizenshipis in order, the autonomous long-termtrends in the field seem to go in exactlythe opposite direction.

Global trendsWhat are these major changes takingplace and affecting our societies to theextent of jeopardizing the transmission of citizenship to future generations?

Starting with Naisbitt,26 several authorshave made lists of global trends: large-scale developments producing majorchanges in all societies, or at least allsocieties of a given type. Not all trendsare equally relevant to social cohesion;but they are if they affect either thestructure or nature of the networks ofrelationships among citizens or therelationship between citizens and theirinstitutions. For both types of relationship

we can point to specific developments.The last decades have witnessed whatsociologists call a perpetual functionaldifferentiation of society. This is describedby Habermas as ‘the acquisition of evergreater access to, and participation in,an ever greater number of “subsystems”(including markets, work environments,public services, associations andcommunities).’27 This phenomenon causesthe relationships among individuals thatdetermine social cohesion to multiplyand to become increasingly complex.

Multiplication of social networks andencountersVertovec points out that ‘changingrelationships and social patterns are oftenrelated to such differentiation, producingfor individuals a multiplication of socialnetworks […]. In other words, the social andinstitutional lives of people are arguablyever more complex, even disjunct.’28

Various, partly interwoven, causes canbe indicated for this effect. The mostimportant are, besides the increasedfluidity of employment relationships, therise of intercontinental mass migration andthe expansion of interactive communicationtechnology. All have brought about a hugeincrease in encounters and relationsbetween individuals, and in the diversityof individuals involved in the encounters.Both on the screen and in the streets,members of the younger generation areengaged in an enormous diversity ofhuman communication. As Morin observes,communication does not automaticallybring understanding, at least not in the empathic sense.29 In order to be able to transform communication into

understanding, it takes skills that mustbe learned.

Many parents are not fully equipped toaccommodate these changes whenraising their children. Migrant parentshave to prepare their children to handletrust and responsibility in a society thatis in many respects different from the onein which they were raised themselves:not just linguistically and culturally, butalso ecologically.30 This in fact applies tonon-migrant parents insofar as migrationhas changed society itself. Few parents arein a position to prepare their children fortrust and responsibility in the virtualworld, which positions an individual in avirtually infinite number of socialnetworks. Finally, families become smallerand smaller, thus looking less like amicro-society offering children a safe butrich social environment where they canprepare for society at large.

Multiplication of institutions and theirinterfacesAt the institutional level, a multiplicationof interfaces has occurred. Citizens used

18 Veldhuis & Ostermann 1997: 7.19 Onderwijsraad 2004: 1.20 European Council 2002: 19.21 EUNEC 2004.22 European Commission 1997b.23 The level of turnout fell from 63% in 1979 to 45,5% in 2004:

Cf. European Parliament a.24 The classic reference is Putnam 1995.25 The term civic deficit was probably coined in Australia by the

Civics Expert Group: cf. Civics Expert Group 1994.26 Naisbitt 1982.27 Habermas 1994: 22.28 Vertovec 1997.29 Morin 2001: 78.30 A rural environment offers natural possibilities for stimula-

ting the affective and motor development of small children.Cut off from such possibilities in European cities, parentsmay miss the tools to offer their children valid substitutes.

1110

so as to warrant peace and economicwelfare all over the continent. Startingout by integrating the European nationalmarkets for such strategic goods as coal,steel and atoms, economic integration wenthand-in-hand with the drive to promotethe mental cohesion of the citizens ofEurope across their national borders.

This strategy of pursuing synergy ofeconomic integration and social cohesionhas been proven to be successful, as isillustrated by the gradual expansion ofthe European Union, both following andeliciting subsequent democraticdevelopments in Greece, in the IberianPeninsula and in Central and EasternEurope. Countries joining the EuropeanUnion subscribe not only to its economicinstitutions but also to the social cohesionthat goes along with it.

At the same time, however, the role ofeducation in furthering social cohesiontended to be taken for granted, at least inWestern Europe. After some generationsof national education, the transmission ofcitizenship had presented itself as a self-perpetuating phenomenon. The populationhad internalized citizenship to such anextent that families could be trusted totake care of its transmission to the nextgeneration. Schools and educationalauthorities could concentrate their effortson raising the levels of achievement inliteracy and numeracy. In Western Europe,quality-assurance systems for educationalsystems in the second half of thetwentieth century have mostly focusedon the value added by education toindividual students, rather than on itsoverall contribution to enhancing social

cohesion. Whereas the private benefitsof an education have become more andmore a matter of public concern, itseems its public benefits have become aprivate matter.

Of course, ongoing European expansioncalled for an adaptation of the individual'ssense of citizenship. The attitudes thatserved to produce social cohesion on thelocal or national level had to be recast,so as to contribute to European cohesion.However, since the idea of shared valueswas regarded as the initial assumptionfor European integration and as a basiccondition for joining the Europeaninstitutions, this did not seem to presenta major problem. The major values ofcitizenship being part of the commonEuropean heritage, the introduction ofthe European dimension of citizenshipcould merely be a question of labellingand communication. Our existing civicvirtues and behaviour would remainbasically unaffected by the addition orsubstitution of Europe for the nation inthe appropriate slots in our mindsets.

1.3 Present trendsThere are reasons to believe that it doesnot quite work in that way. The extensionof the existing repertories of democraticorgans with the European parliament, forexample, has not been accompanied by acorresponding extension of civic trustand participation. As Veldhuis andOstermann put it, ‘upward expansion [of citizenship] is not unlimited andcannot be implemented at any desiredrate of speed’.18 Even though “Europe”enjoys considerable support on the partof the population of its member states,

this support does not always translateinto commitment. In a survey conductedin the Netherlands, for example, supportfor European unity is still very high butless than one third of the populationfeels some kind of attachment to theEuropean Union.19 Pursuing Aristotle'snautical metaphor, we might infer thatmany passengers are embarking on the SS Europe but few sailors are signing on.

Our implicit assumption that the translationof social cohesion to the European leveltakes care of itself must therefore bereconsidered. It is in this context that the2002 Barcelona European Council hascalled on the Member States to ‘promotethe European dimension in education andits integration into pupil’s basic skills by2004’.20 The European Network ofEducation Councils (EUNEC) has recentlycalled for a debate, in an educationalcontext, on ‘the development of theconcept of citizenship in Europe into the concept of European citizenship’.21

In the schools of Europe, the Europeandimension of citizenship should be moreprominent, not just in the curriculum but also in students' hearts and minds.

The civic deficitAny attempts to tackle civic commitmentto Europe in isolation may well miss thepoint. The fact is that over the pastdecades civic trust and participationhave not only failed to keep abreast ofthe increasing institutional complexity,but have shown a general decline. The1997 Young Europeans Eurobarometer22,for example, brought to light a fallback ofcivic commitment among young people.To mention just one indicator, there is

This booklet is about learning to live together, a term introduced by the Delors commission.Learning to live together is understood here as developing knowledge, skills, behaviourand attitudes – i.e., competencies – that (purport to) contribute to social cohesion.

In educational systems worldwide, various terms are used to indicate institutionalteaching and learning processes that (are expected to) develop all or some of thesecompetencies in individuals: citizenship education, civic education, civics, interculturaleducation, moral education, social learning, etc. Each of these terms may refer to differentsets of competencies in different educational systems. In some contexts, the termscitizenship education and civic education are interchangeable, in others they are not.

There is a vast literature on the definitions and dimensions of the concept of citizenship,which cannot be treated here. As O'Shea observes in her Glossary of Terms, there is agrowing recognition that citizenship is neither a stable term nor limited to a singledefinition.34 In the context of the present study, the use of the term citizenship will generallyrefer to the contribution (in terms of roles and actions) of an individual member of society tosocial cohesion, without prejudice to its other uses in different contexts. This perception ofcitizenship encompasses that of democratic citizenship as used by the Council of Europe, andis possibly slightly narrower than that of active citizenship as used in the European Union.

In the present booklet, learning to live together is the preferred term to indicate the roadtoward citizenship. However, depending on the institutional or syntactic context the termscitizenship education, civic education, education for democratic citizenship and learningfor active citizenship will be used for essentially the same thing. This does not necessarilycreate confusion. For instance, when talking about my trip to Amsterdam I may decide to saythat I am going to Amsterdam or that I am taking flight KL-384, without creating confusion orcontradicting myself, as long as I am convinced that flight KL-384 will take me to Amsterdam.

12

Note on terminologyto be surrounded by a limited number ofinstitutions that were often organized in a rather transparent way. The classicperception of citizenship was largelystructured through the nation state.

Presently citizens are involved in a varietyof institutions that require civic commit-ment. Some of these institutions,such as the European Union, are rather complex.As Schmitter points out,

‘the political system of the European Uniondoes not, for example, have a single locusof clearly defined supreme authority; doesnot have an established and relativelycentralized hierarchy of public offices;does not have a predefined and distinctive“public” sphere of competency within whichit can make decisions binding on all; doesnot have a fixed and (more or less) conti-guous territory over which it exercisesauthority; […] does not have an overarchingidentity and symbolic presence for itssubjects/citizens; does not have anestablished and effective monopoly overthe legitimate means of coercion; anddoes not have a predominant ability tocontrol the movement of goods, services,capital and persons within its borders’.31

However, the European institutions are byno means the only sources of increasingcomplexity. Down to the local-leveldemocratic organs, authorities and publicservices have lost transparency as a resultof advancing globalization, devolution,democratization and the shifting borderbetween the public and the private sector.All these developments force citizens toredefine their trust and responsibilityrelationships with the institutions

surrounding them, inclusive of theiraffective disposition with respect tothem, which is in most cases animportant constituent of citizenship.

This increased complexity of the institu-tional environment of European citizensrequires a more sophisticated sense ofcitizenship. Here too, parents often lackthe knowledge and experience to impartthe new norms and values to their children.

How to go on?It is clear that these major changes imposenew requirements on the role of educationin this process. As the Danish contributionto the International Conference onEducation in 2001 has it, ‘the division oflabour between school and society [i.e.,the family and the local community]when it comes to qualifying the citizens,varies according to the type of society,economic structure or culture’.32 Whensociety changes, the required division oflabour in transferring citizenship changeswith it. If society changes drastically, thechanges in education must also be drastic.

As the aforementioned study from theDanish Ministry of Education puts it:

‘Learning to live together is today anecessity at many levels. We must dealwith bigger and more complicatedcohesions than in earlier times. Theability to live together in the family, thelocal community, the nation or globally isclosely connected to the skills of being acitizen – to be part of a community.’ 33

The problem is that some parents hardlyrealize to what extent the social environ-

ment in which their children grow up isso much more complicated than thesocial environment in which they grewup themselves. This society requiresdifferent skills and knowledge. We shallhave to turn to education to assist themin teaching their children, not only tocope with them but also to thrive onthem in new forms of social cohesion, so as to invent the new forms of socialcohesion that match the new complexities.

Since we are heading for a new society,with new circumstances and relation-ships, our schools will have to develop a new type of citizenship. Recycling pastmodels will not do. We are at the onset of a new approach. We know that it isnecessary but we do not know what itlooks like. It is important that we startworking and find out.

This booklet aims to support the processby providing a glance at the state of theart. In the following chapters we shalltake a look at how Europe is learning tolive together. In the next chapter we shalllook at it from the multilateral Europeanperspective. In Chapter 3 we shall look at it from the national policy perspective,while in Chapter 4 we shall look at whatis going on in the schools.

31 Schmitter 1996: 131.32 Danish Ministry of Education 2001: 16.33 Danish Ministry of Education 2001: 15.34 O'Shea 2003: 8.

13

15

14

denmark• “youth town” is a training centre for pupils from the 8th – 12th

grade, to develop skills in a practical way to prepare them to

live in a modern european democracy. discussion groups in

the economy course.

• pupils participate in the “new peace and conflict game”,

learning how crises and conflicts are dealt with. the aim is

to create, through discussions and reading, a world that

participants themselves would like to live in.

• “youth town” contains a folkeskole, a comprehensive school,

where innovative educational ideas are developed. here is a

class on a field trip in the countryside for the project “save

the environment”.

important role in standard setting andadvocacy and is now engaging inmonitoring implementation. TheEuropean Union has had the lead instimulating concrete projects.

However, their roles coincide in somerespects. UNESCO and the OECD provideplatforms for research. UNESCO and the Council of Europe are both into sensitization. The Council of Europe, the European Union, and the OECD areengaged in setting technical standards.The OECD and the European Union arestudying ways of monitoring implemen-tation and outcomes.

In the following, the European acquis andpresent progress of the work on learningto live together will be presented. Theorder of presentation reflecting the longpolicy cycle, we start with UNESCO, tobe followed by the OECD, the Council ofEurope and the European Union. It goeswithout saying that the European Unionwill receive more attention than theother bodies. Since, however, several of

the new member states have providedimportant contributions to furtheringcivic education in framework the Councilof Europe, the impressive work that hasbeen done there will also be described inconsiderable detail.

2.2 UNESCOUNESCO was founded after World War IIas the United Nations Organization forglobal social cohesion. In the Preamble ofits Constitution its member states expressthe conviction that ‘since wars begin inthe minds of men, it is in the minds ofmen that the defences of peace must beconstructed’.37 ‘Peace must therefore be founded, if it is not to fail, upon theintellectual and moral solidarity of mankind.’

In the earlier decades, UNESCO built upa track record in setting standards. Itadopted, for example, the Conventionagainst Discrimination in Education,38 butit also engaged with sensitization. As earlyas 1953, UNESCO set up a network ofAssociated Schools, promoting educationfor international understanding.39 To this

day, the Associated Schools Programmelinks up thousands of schools in Europeand elsewhere.

The impact of global trends on socialcohesion has of course been commonknowledge among specialists, practitionersand policy makers for a long time andUNESCO provided a platform for them.However, the global forum that introducedthe problem onto the education agendawas the World Commission on Educationfor the Twenty-first Century, chaired by

16

In Chapter 1 it was argued that:• Social cohesion is a source of welfare;• Citizenship is, by definition, a major

condition for social cohesion;• We have arrived at a juncture when

European integration demands a majoreffort to lift citizenship to a higherlevel of sophistication;

• While important and lasting globalchanges have adversely affected thepotential of our societies forspontaneous transmission ofcitizenship to the next generations;

• So that we are facing a growing civicdeficit;

• And have to mobilize our educationsystems;

• In the expectation that they willmanage to respond to this sharedchallenge.

The present chapter deals with the role ofour multilateral organizations in addressingthe issue. We shall see that the membersof the European Union have established aconsiderable common acquis on the urgencyof mobilizing education for citizenship,

both within the framework of the EuropeanUnion itself and in the framework ofother multilateral organizations of whichthey are members.

2.1 The long policy cycleProblems that require awareness andbehavioural change on both the macro-and the micro-level usually take a longpolicy cycle to be addressed. While themechanism of global climate change as a consequence of human behaviour, forexample, was formulated in 1920s,35 itwas only in the 1960s that UNESCOmanaged to introduce the issue onto theworld agenda,36 while its implications forour micro-behaviour are still far from cleareven at present.

Long policy cycles involve various stages.First, scientists discover a problem. Then,an authoritative international forum raisespolitical awareness for it. Next, variousmultilateral agencies engage in introducingit onto the political agenda, in producingstrategic analyses, in advocacy of proposedsolutions at the government level, in

producing standard-setting instruments,in monitoring government policies, insensitization of target groups in society,in stimulating pilots and evaluating goodpractice, in developing technical instrumentsand, finally, in gathering and validatingempirical data and devising instruments formonitoring implementation and outcomes.

In practice, of course, numerous loopsoccur in this cycle, while the roles andresponsibilities of various agencies mayoverlap or show gaps.

All EU members are also members of othermultilateral organizations that fulfil a rolein addressing the civic deficit: the Councilof Europe, the OECD and UNESCO. Theroles of these organizations in the longpolicy cycle are to a certain extentcomplementary: a certain division oflabour can be discerned. UNESCO hasdoubtlessly introduced the issue onto the political agenda and raised politicalawareness for the problem. The OECD hasprovided important strategic analyses.The Council of Europe has played an

2 Learning to live together: the European perspective

35 Vernadsky 1926/1997.36 Deléage 1997: 34.37 UNESCO 2002: 7.38 UNESCO 1960.39 Conil Lacoste 1994: 67.

17

specific major issues:• citizenship education: learning at

school and in society;• social exclusion and violence:

education for social cohesion;• common values, cultural diversity and

education: what and how to teach.

The working document of the conferencesought to define the concept of learningto live together, which it described asentailing the desire to live together as wellas the knowledge of how to live together.48

It identified a series of learning needs forliving together that should inform futurecurriculum development and reform:• developing the ability to cope with

rapid change;• developing the ability to participate in

social and political life as an active citizen;• having the capacity to defend and

promote human rights;• possession of a strong sense of local,

national and global identity;• possession of good language and

communication skills;• the ability to access and evaluate

scientific knowledge;• the ability to access new information

and communication technologies anddevelop the skills to use themconstructively for the common good.

The Conference asked UNESCO'sInternational Bureau of Education (IBE)to set up a database on Good Practices inLearning to Live Together (RelatED).49

This database presently contains about ahundred project descriptions, principallyof initiatives worldwide at the school level,promoting education in the areas ofeducation for peace, conflict resolution,

human rights, citizenship, interculturalunderstanding, etc. Initiatives are selectedon the basis of their relevance in termsof their aims and goals as well as of theavailability of evidence of their effective-ness. The focus is on documenting andreporting on evidence of positiveattitudinal or behavioural change and ofreinforcement of positive behaviours intargeted learners and the wider community.

The databank will be presented at the upcoming 47th Session of the inter-governmental International Conferenceon Education (Geneva, September 8 to 11,2004), which is devoted to Quality educationfor all young people: challenges, trendsand priorities.50

It may be surmised that UNESCO has beenfulfilling an effective role in raisingawareness of the social cohesion deficitand has successfully contributed to settingthe political agenda and gathering examplesof good practice.

2.3 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)The OECD was set up to contribute topromote sustainable economic growthand rising standards of living in bothmember and non-member countries. In the 1960s, it made a large contributionto the establishment and recognition ofthe concept of human capital ineconomics. Its Centre for EducationalResearch and Innovation (CERI), createdin 1968, has since become a hub ofresearch on innovation, producingstrategic analyses and key indicators inthe domain of education.

Education and education systems are, of course, scrutinized from an economicangle. However, this is not a narrow angle:CERI has embraced innovative andemerging views on the way in which edu-cation contributes, or can contribute, tothe economic development of society.Consequently, the OECD was and is at theforefront in generating and disseminatinganalyses and knowledge about, for example,the (possible and actual) outcomes of life-long learning and early child development.

2.3.1 Social capital: the state of the artIt is no surprise that, in recent years, theOECD has closely followed the increasingattention, on the part of economists andsocial scientists, to the role of what itcalls social capital in economic activity andhuman wellbeing. The OECD has meanwhileproduced a few strategic reports on thesubject. In The Well-being of Nations,51 ittends towards the conclusion that socialcohesion is important for the sustaineddevelopment of society. On the one hand,social cohesion can mobilize the energyof the population to get things done. On the other hand its erosion, ‘such as

40 International Commission on Education for the Twenty-firstCentury 1996.

41 International Commission on Education for the Twenty-firstCentury 1996: 54.

42 International Commission on Education for the Twenty-firstCentury 1996: 56.

43 International Commission on Education for the Twenty-firstCentury 1996: 85-97.

44 International Commission on Education for the Twenty-firstCentury 1996: 91-94.

45 International Commission on Education for the Twenty-firstCentury 1996: 61; present author's italics.

46 It is found in various recommendations adopted by UNESCOand the Council of Europe. The Dutch Advisory Council onEducation recently published a study entitled Learning toLive together. Cf. Onderwijsraad 2002 a.

47 International Bureau of Education 2001 a.48 International Bureau of Education 2001 a.49 This databank is available online: cf. International Bureau of

Education a.50 A CD-ROM containing selected evaluated projects is

forthcoming.51 OECD 2001.

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Jacques Delors. In 1996 it presented itsreport Learning: The Treasure Within toUNESCO and its member states.40

2.2.1 The Delors CommissionThe Commission is extremely anxious aboutthe developments that were sketched inChapter 1 of the present booklet. It speaksliterally of a crisis of social cohesion.41

‘At issue here is the capacity of theindividual to behave as a true citizen,aware of the collective interest andanxious to play a part in democratic life.’42

The analysis of the situation by theCommission can be summarized as follows.

If education is to succeed in its tasks, thecommission points out, it must pursuefour fundamental goals of learning, viz.:• learning to know, that is, acquiring the

instruments of understanding(including learning to learn);

• learning to do, so as to be able to actcreatively on one's environment;

• learning to be, the fulfilment of thestudent as an autonomous andresponsible individual;

• learning to live together, the fulfilmentof the individual as a social being, ‘bydeveloping an understanding of otherpeople and an appreciation ofinterdependence [...] in a spirit ofrespect for the values of pluralism,mutual understanding and peace’.43

According to the Commission, learning tolive together has for far too long beenneglected in formal education, whichfocused mainly on learning to know andlearning to do. Learning to live togetherwas to a large extent left to chance, orassumed to be the natural product of the

former. The commission therefore urgesfor a renewed focus on learning to livetogether in our education systems.

According to the Delors Commission,“learning to live together” implies twoprocesses. On the interpersonal level it implies discovering (i.e., learning toknow and understand) each other. On the collective level it implies learningto work towards common objectives,(i.e., collaborating in projects that shapea common future).44 It is precisely thesecompetencies that are presently put to thetest by the profound and lasting changesaffecting social cohesion that have beendescribed in the previous chapter.

Reintroducing the teaching of the normsand values of citizenship to schools is nota nostalgic answer to the assumeddecline of morals and standards ofbehaviour. It is an urgent answer to thechallenges facing a society that developsprogressively towards peace and welfare.As the Delors Commission puts it,‘education cannot be satisfied withbringing individuals together by gettingthem to accept common values shaped inthe past. It must also (...) give everyone(...) the ability to play an active part inenvisioning the future of society.’ 45

2.2.2 Learning to live togetherUNESCO's member states gave consider-able support to the findings and recom-mendations of the Delors Commission.The transparent and felicitous termLearning to live together was firmlyimprinted on the retinas and eardrums ofpolicy makers all over the world, and hassince been used in numerous international

conferences and international organiza-tions, in various international instrumentsand in national and local conferences.46

It is now making its way into nationalcurricula: learning to live together(“apprendre à vivre ensemble”) ispresently integrated into the Frenchprimary school curriculum. In the presentbooklet, it will also be used to indicate anylearning processes that enhance a learner'scitizenship, i.e., contribute to the develop-ment of competencies that enable thelearner to contribute to social cohesion.

Education for All for Learning to LiveTogetherUNESCO and its member states havemeanwhile followed up on the findings of the commission by organizing andpatronizing international conferences,strategic analyses, support to governmentsand pilot projects. A major event was the2001 International Conference onEducation (ICE), uniting ministers ofEducation worldwide in Geneva, to discussthe theme Education for All for Learningto Live Together.

The Conference examined ‘how to enableeach learner to master the knowledge,skills and attitudes necessary for theintellectual and moral development ofindividuals and society’.47 The theme thus sought to encapsulate two majorpreoccupations of the internationalcommunity: education for peaceful livingtogether and educational quality.

Although each of the sub-themes thatwere discussed at the conference dealtwith aspects of learning to live together,three of them specifically addressed

release on the Dublin meeting entitled“OECD Urges Educators to Address SocialCohesion Risks”,63 the OECD does its shareof awareness raising as well.

2.4 Council of EuropeThe Council of Europe was set up to defendhuman rights, parliamentary democracyand the rule of law, to develop continent-wide agreements to standardize membercountries' social and legal practices, andto promote awareness of a Europeanidentity based on shared values cuttingacross different cultures.

The Council is a standard-setting organi-zation, producing legally binding Europeantreaties and conventions as well asresolutions and recommendations togovernments setting out policy guidelineson such issues as legal matters, health,education, culture and sport. The Council ofEurope also tackles problems shared by itsmember states in its fields of competenceby carrying out projects and pooling ideas,experience and research.It monitors thecompliance, in member states, to its trea-ties, conventions and recommendations.

The core components of the Council arethe Committee of (foreign) Ministers, the Parliamentary Assembly and theStrasbourg-based Secretariat. Heads ofstate and government sometimes meet at irregular times in so-called summits.Moreover, there are specialized organsdealing with specific competencies of theCouncil, such as the Council for CulturalCo-operation (which is also responsible foreducation), the Steering Committee forEducation and the Standing Conferenceof European Ministers of Education or

the Committee of Ministers in the field ofeducation.

2.4.1 The Council of Europe'scompetenciesThe Committee of Ministers can makerecommendations to member states onmatters for which the Committee hasagreed to conduct a “common policy”.64

Recommendations are not binding onmember states but the Statute doespermit the Committee of Ministers to askmember governments ‘to inform it of theaction taken by them’ in regard torecommendations. Recommendations ofthe Committee of Ministers in the field ofeducation are drawn up by expert groups,under the responsibility of the SteeringCommittee, following projects carriedout within the framework of the Councilof Europe's intergovernmental co-operation in the field of education. TheParliamentary Assembly may also adoptrecommendations.

2.4.2 Learning to live together at theCouncil of EuropeThe desire to promote learning to livetogether has been the foundation of manyEuropean standard-setting instrumentsand decisions adopted by the Council ofEurope's Parliamentary Assembly and theCommittee of Ministers.65 At first, theCouncil's various initiatives were geared toenhancing public awareness of Europeancitizenship and the development of asense of identity or a consciousness ofbeing European that goes beyond theawareness of national citizenship. Followingthe establishment of democracy in Greece,Spain and Portugal the focus shifted fromthe identity aspect of European citizenship

to the shared values underlying it and toeducation as a means to instil them.66

The work on learning to live togetherthrough programmes on civic education andcivic instruction received a spectacularimpetus in the course of the 1990s, whendemocracies were established in Centraland Eastern Europe and Education forDemocratic Citizenship (EDC) becamethe common denominator in a number offormal, non-formal and informalEuropean educational and traininginitiatives aiming to promote equitableand just societies, open to and jointlyshaped by all its members.

2.4.3 Education for DemocraticCitizenship 1997-2000After a preparatory phase that wastriggered by the Standing Conference ofMinisters of Education and variousconsultation meetings, it was at the 1997Strasbourg summit that the heads ofstate and government of the MemberStates expressed their desire ‘to developeducation for democratic citizenshipbased on the rights and responsibilities

52 OECD 2001: 14.53 OECD 2001: 35.54 OECD 2001: 71.55 OECD 2001: 69-70.56 OECD 2001: 70.57 OECD 2002: 91-95.58 Torney-Purta et al. 2001.59 Rychen & Salganik 2003.60 Putnam 2004.61 OECD 2004a.62 OECD 2004a.63 OECD 2004b.64 Council of Europe1949: Chapter IV, article 15.b.65 Duerr et al. 2000. 66 Fuente & Muñoz-Repiso 1982.

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declining levels of civic engagement’, maynot be initially apparent but eventuallyimpair an economy's ability to react tonegative shocks.52

The OECD's analyses tend to the conclusionthat ‘education can play an important rolein providing the basis for social cohesion,although there is no clear indication ofthe right direction for formal education’.53

The mechanism through which educationcontributes to social cohesion is unclear.There remains a great deal of fluidity aboutthe concepts and ‘the effectiveness ofdifferent policies in promoting social capitalis as yet an almost wholly unresearchedfield’.54 The OECD points to the presentlack of knowledge on how to measurecompetencies beyond the areas ofnumeracy and literacy, on how educationcan promote social capital and on how toassess its outcomes in society.55 We needto identify, through policy evaluation,what works in promoting social capital.56

2.3.2 Indicators for civic knowledgeAs a start, the OECD included “civicknowledge and engagement” in its set ofindicators.57 The indicator and the datawere derived from the Civic EducationStudy of the International Association forthe Evaluation of Educational Achievement(IEA),58 the results of which will besummarized in Chapter 3 of this booklet.

2.3.3 Definition and Selection ofCompetencies (DeSeCo)Aware of the lack of an explicit, overarchingconceptual framework based on broadtheories of what skills, knowledge, andcompetencies are and how they relate toeach other, the OECD has initiated the

programme Definition and Selection ofCompetencies: Theoretical and ConceptualFoundations (DeSeCo), which is one ofseveral enterprises presently being under-taken in various international bodies todefine a theoretically sound set of key com-petencies that should provide a referencepoint for the development of indicatorsand interpretation of empirical results.

The project has meanwhile defined threegeneric key competencies. One of them,“functioning in socially heterogeneousgroups”, pertains to social cohesion,entailing the ability to relate well toothers, to co-operate, and to manage andresolve conflicts, which is considered tobe ‘particularly relevant in pluralistic,multicultural societies. Individuals needto learn how to join and function in groupsand social orders whose members arefrom diverse backgrounds and how to dealwith differences and contradictions.’59

We may expect that these competencieswill furnish the conceptual frameworkfor future OECD work on indicators foreducational outcomes.

2.3.4 Dublin 2004It may be noted that, as far as education,social cohesion and citizenship are concer-ned, the OECD and its member states havenow understood Delors's message. Socialcohesion was a central issue at the recentmeeting of OECD Education ministers,held in Dublin on March 18 and 19, 2004.At the meeting, which included a keynotespeech by Robert Putnam on this theme,60

education ministers discussed the contri-bution of education to social cohesion, aswell as the theme of education for demo-cratic citizenship.61

Ministers agreed, among other things, that:• pedagogical approaches play an

important role; respect for theopinions of others can be built intomethods of classroom teaching;

• more co-operative modes of learning,as well as extra-curricular activitiesincluding sports, arts and civiceducation, can also develop socialbonds within schools, alongsideinterpersonal skills;

• student involvement in schoolmanagement is important; schoolcouncils, youth parliaments and newerweb-based forums can all provide frame-works for encouraging and developingcivic and democratic engagement;

• more collegial approaches to thegovernance of educational institutions,and increased involvement of parentsin schooling may help to develop social cohesion within and aroundeducational institutions;

• practical on-the-ground understandingof the local community and theenvironment can be effective inengaging young people in localconcerns and issues;

• the evaluation of competencies, skillsand experiences acquired within aninformal context is also relevant.62

As we shall see in Chapter 4, similarissues have been raised by the educationworld itself.

It may be concluded that the OECD fulfilsa role in various stages of the long policycycle. It produces strategic analyses,devises instruments for monitoringoutcomes and gathers and validatesempirical data. Moreover, seeing a press

‘that the awareness of European citizenswith regard to their rights and responsi-bilities is far from satisfactory’. It recognized‘the need to take steps to promote botheducation in the responsibilities of theindividual and awareness on the part ofcitizens of their responsibilities, within thecontext of human rights education, so asnot to neglect the social aspect of theserights’, and expressed its belief that‘education in the rights and, at the sametime, the responsibilities of the individualshould be taken much more seriously inall Council of Europe member states.’

In view of the need to integrate educationin the responsibilities of the individualinto the existing programmes (humanrights education, EDC), the Assemblyrecommended that the Committee ofMinisters call on member states toinclude in school curricula informationdesigned to alert pupils to the importanceand the substantive contents of humanrights, including their social dimensionand each person's obligation to respect therights of others and the correspondingresponsibilities. The Committee ofMinisters was asked to include raisingcitizens' awareness of their rights andthe responsibilities as an objective ofEducation for Democratic Citizenship.

2.4.5 Civic education and terrorismIn another Recommendation, adopted inSeptember 1999, the Assembly went out of its way to invoke learning to livetogether to fight terrorism. Following areport of the committee on Legal Affairsand Human Rights that signalled a‘radicalization of the youth fringes of theMuslim immigrant population, who are

simultaneously integrated and marginalized,since they have received a Europeaneducation but are also the victims of socialexclusion’,74 the Assembly observed that‘the prevention of terrorism also dependson education in democratic values andtolerance, with the eradication of theteaching of negative or hateful attitudestowards others and the development of aculture of peace in all individuals andsocial groups’. The Assembly recommendedthat the Committee of Ministers ‘envisagethe preparation of a civic educationtextbook for all schools in Europe so as tocombat the spread of extremist ideas andadvocate tolerance and respect for othersas an essential basis of community life’.75

2.4.6 Budapest 1999At its 1999 Budapest meeting, whichmarked the 50th anniversary of the Councilof Europe, the Committee of Ministersadopted a Declaration on “Education forDemocratic citizenship, based on therights and responsibilities of the citizens”.76

The Ministers recalled the Council's missionto build a freer, more tolerant and justsociety based on solidarity, commonvalues and a cultural heritage enriched byits diversity. They emphasized the need todevelop education for democratic citizen-ship based on the rights and responsi-bilities of citizens, and they insisted onthe urgency of strengthening individuals'awareness and understanding of their rightsand responsibilities, so that they developa capacity to exercise these rights andrespect the rights of others, and finally,stressed the fundamental role of educationin promoting the active participation of allindividuals in democratic life at all levels.

On the basis of these considerations, theCommittee of Ministers declared thateducation for democratic citizenshipstrengthens social cohesion, mutualunderstanding and solidarity, and calledupon member states ‘to make educationfor democratic citizenship based on therights and responsibilities of citizens anessential component of all educationalpractices’. In the end, of course, theresponsibility for applying these practicesand activities lies with the member states.

The Programme on Education forDemocratic CitizenshipThe Committee also officially endorsed the“Programme on Education for Democraticcitizenship, based on the rights andresponsibilities of the citizens”, whichwas appended to the declaration.77

The programme has by now become oneof the flagships of the Council of Europe.

The objectives of the Programmeincluded the following:• identification and development of novel

and effective strategies, means andmethods for the strengthening of the

67 Council of Europe 1997.68 Council of Europe 1997.69 Parliamentary Assembly 1999a.70 Kovács 1999.71 Audigier 2000: 5.1.72 Balkenende 2004.73 Parliamentary Assembly 1999 a.74 Parliamentary Assembly 1999 c.75 Parliamentary Assembly 1999 b.76 Council of Europe 1999.77 Council of Europe 1999.

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of citizens and the participation of youngpeople in civil society’.67 Hence EDC wasviewed as instrumental in implementingthe Council of Europe's core mission. Theheads of state and government recom-mended that Member States incorporatecitizenship education in programmes,curricula and timetables at all educationallevels, as well as develop initiatives infavour of initial and continuing teachertraining in this area.68

The 1997 action plan on Education forDemocratic Citizenship The heads of state and government alsoendorsed an action plan on EDC. Threeimportant objectives were identified:a)to provide citizens with the knowledge,

skills and competencies needed foractive participation within ademocratic civil society;

b)to create opportunities for dialogueand discourse, conflict resolution andconsensus and communication andinteraction;

c) to stimulate an awareness of rightsand responsibilities, of norms andvalues, of ethical and moral issueswithin the community.

This first stage of the EDC project had an exploratory character. Its initialobjective was to find out which valuesand skills individuals require in order tobecome participating citizens, how theycan acquire these skills and how they canlearn to pass them on to others.

2.4.4 Education in theresponsibilities of the individualIn 1999, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted a

Recommendation on “Education in theresponsibilities of the individual”.69 Thisintroduced an issue that had so far receivedlittle attention in the European discussionson citizenship: the duties and responsi-bilities of citizens and their relationshipto rights, freedoms and entitlements.

The Assembly observed ‘that the exerciseof fundamental freedoms entails responsi-bilities’, but it also expressed its conviction‘that it is not the role of a democraticstate to dictate rules for every aspect ofhuman behaviour, since moral andethical attitudes must remain an area inwhich the individual has freedom of choice.’

In other words, there is an asymmetricrelationship between citizens' rights andentitlements on the one hand and theirresponsibilities and duties on the other.This had been pointed out by PéterKovács in one of the studies underlyingthe EDC project.70 Kovács had concludedthat, whereas rights can be carefullylisted and specified, drawing up a list ofspecific responsibilities to go withcitizenship would be not only impossibleand superfluous, but above all behazardous, if its aim is to give these adegree of priority over (human) rights.

This does not imply that citizens have no responsibilities vis-à-vis the state and vis-à-vis one's fellow-citizens. On the contrary: in its recommendation, the Assembly stressed the particularimportance of strengthening citizens'awareness with regard to theirresponsibilities towards themselves and others, as well as towards society as a whole.

However, civic responsibilities cannot beuniformly specified. Whereas all citizensare equal in principle in having the samecivic rights and entitlements, civic respon-sibilities may vary between citizens,depending on their talents, education,profession and role in society. In this respectlittle has changed since Aristotle's oarsmen,helmsmen and lookout men. As Audigierremarks in one of his many contributionsto the EDC programme, ‘the greatestcivic responsibility [...] is that of personswho have more power and responsibilityin society’.71

Moreover, civic responsibilities cannotbe enforced. As Kovács points out,enforcing responsibilities turns them intoobligations. As Jan Peter Balkenendewould remind us in a later address to theParliamentary Assembly, responsibilitiescan only be internalized: they must passinto our hearts and minds.

‘This is why education, both at home andat school and civic education in a broadersense, are so important. That is whereconcepts like tolerance, respect for othersand a sense of responsibility are passedon, concepts without which it is almostimpossible to honour our shared values.’ 72

On the basis of such considerations, theParliamentary Assembly expressed itsconviction, in its Recommendation oneducation in the responsibilities of theindividual, ‘that awareness of citizens'responsibilities should be raised througheducation’.73

The Assembly furthermore spotted the civicdeficit in European societies. It observed

countries and the first practical experiencescould be evaluated.

Evaluation of EDC 1997-2000The European Ministers of Education notedin Cracow that the EDC programme was wellon its way and had shown ‘how educationfor democratic citizenship can contributeto social cohesion through learning toparticipate in the life of society, to assumeresponsibility and to live together’.82

They endorsed the results and adoptedthe Resolution on Finished Projects.

The work on EDC of course had to be con-tinued. The Resolution of the Committee ofMinisters adopted in Cracow included therecommendation that networks of citizen-ship experiments and sites be developed,while future work should accentuateaspects more directly linked to educationalpolicy and practice.

The Cracow guidelinesThe resolution includes, as an appendix, aset of draft common guidelines to ministerson Education for Democratic Citizenship,which were stated to ‘lay down a compre-hensive, integrated approach to policiesand practices on EDC’.83 These guidelinesstipulated, among many other things, thatin Member states:• in conducting policies to strengthen EDC,

legislation for EDC should be drawn up;• policies to strengthen EDC should

consider the values and principles ofeducation for democratic citizenship as an essential goal of the entirecurriculum and as criteria for the qualityassurance of education systems, whilethe recognition of skills, qualificationsand training in EDC should be encouraged;

• EDC should be further promoted bymeasures including the carrying out ofparticipatory basic and appliedresearch and development in EDC, thuscontributing to the monitoring of EDCinitiatives and innovations and to EDCtraining and curriculum development.

2.4.8 The 2002 Recommendation onEducation for Democratic CitizenshipIn 2002, the Committee of Ministersadopted its most explicit and most action-oriented Recommendation to date on EDCto member states.84 It constitutes thereference for the work on EDC that theCouncil of Europe is presently undertaking.

In the recommendation, the Committeeexpresses its concern about the growinglevels of political and civic apathy andlack of confidence in democraticinstitutions, as well as the increasedcases of corruption, racism, xenophobia,aggressive nationalism, intolerance ofminorities, discrimination and socialexclusion, all of which are considered tobe major threats to the security, stabilityand growth of democratic societies.

Concerned to protect the rights of citizens,to make them aware of their responsi-bilities and to strengthen democraticsociety, conscious of the responsibilities ofpresent and future generations to maintainand safeguard democratic societies andof the role of education in promoting theactive participation of all individuals inpolitical, civic, social and cultural life, theCommittee invokes once more educationfor democratic citizenship as a factor forsocial cohesion, mutual understanding,intercultural and inter-religious dialogue

and solidarity and states that educationfor democratic citizenship should be atthe heart of the reform and implemen-tation of educational policies.

The Committee recommends, amongother things, that the governments ofmember states, with respect for theirconstitutional structures, national orlocal situations and education systems:• make education for democratic

citizenship a priority objective ofeducational policy making and reforms;

• encourage and support initiativeswhich promote education fordemocratic citizenship within andamong member states;

• be actively involved in the preparationand staging of a European Year ofCitizenship through Education, as animportant vehicle for developing,preserving and promoting democraticculture on a pan-European scale;

• be guided by the principles set out inthe appendix to the Recommendationin their present or future educationalreforms.

77 Council of Europe 1999.78 See the lists of activities in Birzea 2000: 73-80.79 Audigier 2000.80 Duer et al. 2000.81 Carey & Forrester 1999.82 Council of Europe 2000, paragraph 9.83 Council of Europe 2000, paragraph 9.84 Council of Europe 2002.

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democratic fabric of society;• exploration of major issues regarding

education for democratic citizenshipbased on citizens' rights andresponsibilities;

• exchange and dissemination ofknowledge, experience and goodpractices across Europe;

• provision of assistance for reforms ofeducation and other relevant policies;

• development of a platform fornetworking and partnerships;

• fostering public awareness ofindividuals' rights and understanding of their responsibilities.

The key issues that the programme wasintended to deal with included: • the evolving concept of democratic

citizenship, in its political, legal,cultural and social dimensions;

• human rights, including their socialdimension and each person's obligationto respect the rights of others;

• the relationships between rights andresponsibilities as well as commonresponsibilities in combating socialexclusion, marginalization, civicapathy, intolerance and violence;

• the core competencies for democraticcitizenship based on citizens' rights andresponsibilities;

• the development of active citizenshipthrough different innovative methodsof active and participative learning in a lifelong learning perspective;

• learning democracy in school anduniversity life, including participation indecision making and the associated struc-tures of pupils, students and teachers;

• the nature of and links between thevarious approaches to education for

democratic citizenship based on citizens'rights and responsibilities such as humanrights education, civic education,intercultural education, history teaching,democratic leadership training, conflictresolution and confidence building;

• the role of the media and newinformation technologies in educationfor democratic citizenship based oncitizen's rights and responsibilities;

• forms of voluntary work andparticipation in civil society,particularly at the local level;

• young peoples' lifestyles and the differentforms of their involvement in society.

The activities of the programme included:• drawing up guidelines and recommen-

dations on education for democraticcitizenship based on citizens' rights and responsibilities;

• encouraging the establishment of nationalplans for education for democraticcitizenship based on citizens' rights andresponsibilities in member States;

• providing assistance to member Stateswith the reforms of the educational andtraining systems (curriculum and text-book development, teacher training), soas to include education for democraticcitizenship based on citizens' rights andresponsibilities;

• examining the setting up of instrumentsfor the recognition of voluntary involve-ment in society and of informal learningperiods as a means of promoting educationfor democratic citizenship based oncitizens' rights and responsibilities.

The modes of action in executing theprogramme included setting up networksof experts and conducting research and

surveys, providing expertise and infor-mation, collecting exchanging andevaluating examples of good practice,producing innovative training tools andawareness-raising materials, etc.

Finally, the Committee of Ministers askedthe Council to prepare draft guidelinesand recommendations to Member Stateson EDC, to be discussed at the Standingconference of Ministers. It also asked theCouncil to make plans for the setting upof a European campaign for education fordemocratic citizenship based on citizens'rights and responsibilities.

2.4.7 Cracow 2000The ensuing series of conferences, publi-cations and experiments on EDC underthe aegis of the Council of Europe78

culminated in the 2000 Cracow meetingof the Standing Conference of EuropeanMinisters of Education, which was devotedto “educational policies for democraticcitizenship and social cohesion:challenges and strategies for Europe”.

Several reports were presented to theConference, including studies on basicconcepts and core competencies ofdemocratic citizenship,79 on strategiesfor learning democratic citizenship,80 andalso on actual practical work that hadbeen conducted under the auspices ofthe Council of Europe in so-called sites of citizenship, local grass-roots projects.81

The Sites of Citizenship network wasconsidered a novelty in the work of theCouncil of Europe, by establishing a linkbetween policy development, practiceand training. Between 1997 and 2000, a dozen sites had been set up in various

European awareness-raising campaign,which will culminate in 2005, in theEuropean Year of Citizenship throughEducation, to be proclaimed by theCommittee of Ministers in conformity with its 2002 recommendation.

The overall aim of the Year is to promotethe implementation of EDC, and to transferthe ownership of EDC to member states.The interest and publicity surrounding theevents should help to disseminate achieve-ments in EDC-related areas, notably bymaking full use of the quality indicatorsdeveloped within the current projects.

NetworkingNational EDC co-ordinators in eachcountry are making progress in settingup a network, in which a large number of partners participate and co-operate:member states, NGOs, sites ofcitizenship participants, universities,businesses, etc.

Dissemination of good practiceA collection of examples of good practiceis being compiled. The Council of Europe'swebsite presents examples, mostly schools,from 19 member states, fourteen ofwhich are EU members.90 According tothe website, it seems possible to identifythree tendencies among the projects:• to use schools as models to establish

the democratic foundations of society,e.g., through civic education;

• to use schools as institutions to allowyoung people to be familiarized withnational and international democraticinstitutions, e.g., through preparingthem to participate in youth parliaments;

• to use schools as an instrument to

foster mutual understanding andrespect for cultural diversity, e.g.,through exercises in conflict solving.

Generating and exchange of goodpracticeAs to the particular attention paid to EDCpractices, the Council of Europe pointsout that, ‘as one cannot learn democraticcitizenship without practicing it, EDCalso includes various activities in whichparticipation in society can be learned,exercised and encouraged’.91 On theseactivities no progress has been reported sofar. As for the Sites of Citizenship network,no new developments have come up sincethose analysed in the report presented atthe Cracow conference in 2000.

The future of EDCAll in all, it is clear that the Council ofEurope has played an essential role inseveral phases of the long policy cycle.Through EDC, the Council has successfullyset the European agenda for learning to livetogether through a series of pertinentdeclarations and standard-setting instru-ments, as well as by providing guidelinesfor educational policies. EDC has providedsome useful strategic analyses and, byconducting the All-European study onEDC policies and legislation, has doneimportant pioneering work. TheEuropean Year of Citizenship throughEducation may, depending on the degreeof support on the part of governments,become a milestone in sensitizing thepractitioners, and possibly the populationat large.

In the future, it seems, the standard-setting work may require less attention.

The essential policy objectives have nowbeen firmly codified. The monitoringrole, wich also belongs to the council ofEurope’s core competences, may nowgain importance. The All-European studymay be viewed as a first step.

The question is whether EDC shouldexpand its activities in the field of settingup large-scale experiments, monitoringgood practice and conducting researchon the level of educational practice.

A great deal of work remains to be donehere, as we shall see in the followingchapters. EDC was asked to do it. Thecurrent phase of the programme, asendorsed in the 2000 Cracow Resolution,included, for example, the developmentof networks of citizenship experimentsand sites. The work that EDC has donehere thus far is not as visible as thechallenges it is supposed to respond to.The problem is that going down the longpolicy cycle entails an increase in thescale of the activities. We may wonder if the Council, in view of the size of itsbudget and organization, is capable of

85 Council of Europe 2002: 4.86 Council of Europe 2002: 6.87 Council of Europe 2003.88 Council of Europe a.89 Birzea et al. 2004.90 Council of Europe b.91 Council of Europe c.

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The 2002 guidelines on EDCThe principles referred to in the Recom-mendation include the involvement ofsocial institutions, particularly the family,and civil society in contributing to educationfor democratic citizenship in informalsettings. Also, it must be ensured that, ‘asearly as the policy-making stage, researchand evaluation facilities are available for assessing the results, successes anddifficulties of educational policies’.85

It is therefore recommended that ‘eachstate's contribution to the European andinternational debate on education fordemocratic citizenship be reinforced byestablishing or consolidating Europeannetworks of practitioners and researchers,for experimenting on and developingeducation for democratic citizenship(“sites of citizenship”), educationalresources and documentation centresand research and assessment institutes.’

The principles include a long list of actionsneeded in order to fulfil the general aimsof education for democratic citizenship,both from an educational and from apolicy-development perspective. ‘It wouldbe appropriate to implement educationalapproaches and teaching methods whichaim at learning to live together in ademocratic society, and at combatingaggressive nationalism, racism andintolerance, while eliminating violenceand extremist thinking and behaviour.’

The principles also include a list of keycompetencies that would contribute toreaching such aims.86

• settle conflicts in a non-violent manner;• argue in defence of one’s viewpoint;

• listen to, understand and interpretother people’s arguments;

• recognize and accept differences;• make choices, consider alternatives

and subject them to ethical analysis;• shoulder shared responsibilities;• establish constructive, non-aggressive

relations with others;• develop a critical approach to informa-

tion, thought patterns and philosophical,religious, social, political and culturalconcepts, at the same time remainingcommitted to the fundamental valuesand principles of the Council of Europe.

Finally, the list of principles and guidelinespays special attention to the training ofthe teachers and trainers who areexpected to instil these competencies.

2.4.9 Intercultural educationThe Standing Conference of EuropeanMinisters of Education, at its venue inAthens in 2003, adopted a Declaration on intercultural education on the newEuropean context, in which the ministersonce more endorsed the principles oflearning to live together.87 In it, theministers call on the Council of Europe to focus its work programme on enhancingthe quality of education as a response to the challenges posed by the diversityof our societies by making democracylearning and intercultural education keycomponents of educational reform. Theyrequest the Council, among other things,to ‘encourage research focusing on sociallearning and co-operative learning in orderto take into account the “learning to livetogether” and intercultural aspects in allteaching activities’, as well as to ‘developquality assurance instruments inspired by

education for democratic citizenship, takingaccount of the intercultural dimension anddevelop quality indicators and tools forself-evaluation and self-focused develop-ment for educational establishments’.

2.4.10 Education for DemocraticCitizenship 2001-2004Meanwhile, the second phase of the EDCprogramme is well on its way. In line withthe Cracow resolution, the focus is oneducational policy and practice. The pro-gramme has adopted a “multi-dimensional,holistic and lifelong learning approach” butpays particular attention to EDC practicesin schools.88 The programme has achievedimportant results in several areas.

Policy development in member statesThe work on EDC policy development inmember states has consisted of a large-scale All-European study of EDC policiesand legislation, in which current policiesin all European countries are identified, theconcrete measures taken by governmentsto ensure the effective implementation ofthese policies are mapped and the viewsof a sample of practitioners of and stake-holders in the implementation of EDCpolicies in the countries concerned arecollected. On the basis of informationprovided by national co-ordinators, existingdatabases and comparative researchprojects, as well as focus groups ofpractitioners, five regional reports weredrawn up. The final report of this impressiveenterprise, including a synthesis byCesar Birzea, appeared in April 2004.89

It will be returned to in Chapter 3.

Communication and awareness raisingThe EDC programme has set up a

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germany• in may 2004, as a part of a unesco project, pupils of the

geschwister-scholl-schule, a primary school in crailsheim-

ingersheim, went to the hague to demonstrate their support

for human rights and democracy worldwide.

• at the geschwister-scholl-schule, both "exclusion” and

“discrimination" were the focus of a two-day project.

this boy explains the concept of civil courage.

• in the project, pupils from all grades joined in inventing

games, songs and texts on the theme "courage and civil

courage".

or two. For a long time it was regardedexclusively as a necessary component ofEurope's social and economic policiesand was exclusively promoted throughsocio-economic instruments: socialcohesion implied addressing socialinequalities and regional economicdisparities. The Treaty of Amsterdamwent on to extend the mandate of the EU to combat social exclusion.

The use of socio-economic policy instru-ments to further social cohesion remainsas vital these days as it was a decadeago. Nowadays, however, possiblyinfluenced by the work on social capitaldone by the OECD, both the concept ofsocial cohesion and the range of policyinstruments to be implemented inpromoting it have been considerablyexpanded. As we shall see, the Lisbonprocess plays an important role here.

The concept of citizenshipThe concept of citizenship has a longerhistory in the European acquis. Underthe Treaty of Rome, an individual citizen'srecognition at the European level wasconfined to the economic sphere and his role as a worker. When Unioncitizenship rights were conferred onMember State nationals in the 1992Maastricht Treaty, the discussion oncitizenship was still largely limited tojudicial aspects. Citizenship was definedas giving citizens of the member states of the European Union certain rights and responsibilities such as freedom tomove about in the Union unhindered, to settle anywhere in the Union, to voteand be a candidate in local and EuropeanParliament elections, etc.94

Thus, even though there was an Erasmusprogramme for curriculum developmententitled “Education for citizenship in anew Europe: learning democracy, socialjustice, global responsibility and respectfor human rights” as early as 1992, in theearly 1990s the concept of citizenship wascommonly understood in rather static andinstitutionally dominated terms. Being acitizen was primarily a question of legalitiesand entitlements. The dimensions ofidentity and inclusion were considered topresent few problems for the fulfilmentof citizenship, in that European societieswere understood to be essentially homo-geneous in cultural and linguistic terms.95

Active citizenshipAll this changed in the course of the1990s. It was increasingly realized thatat the local or national level homogeneityis not a reality, whether it be for theexistence of indigenous minorities or as aresult of mass migration. It also turnedout that many citizens were neithersufficiently aware of their entitlementsnor did they exercise them effectively.96

Finally the decline of civic commitmentreferred to in Chapter 1 became moreand more transparent.

As a result of such findings, the Europeanconcept of citizenship shifted towards abroader based notion, in which legal andsocial rights and entitlements continueto furnish essential strands but arecomplemented by expectations as to the commitment of individual citizens to their societies and institutions, as well as to their competence to fulfil suchcommitment. Active citizenship becamethe buzzword.

Various definitions and characteristics ofactive citizenship have been given, bothwithin and outside the framework of theEuropean Union. Some varieties tend tohighlight the citizen-to-citizen relation-ship, focusing on responsibility andphilanthropy; others tend to highlight therelationship between the citizen and publicinstitutions, focusing on involvement inconstructing and regenerating civil societyand exercising civic rights.97 The mostinfluential one in the European contexthas probably been that of the StudyGroup on Education and Training set upby the commission, which insists that,

‘to become a rallying idea, Europeancitizenship must be real, not merely formal.This implies going beyond principles andrules. Citizenship is a plural concept:• it is a normative idea and in this sense

is related to the concept of civil societyand its moral and ideological defence;

• it is a social practice and developsthrough a dynamic process, duringwhich the sense of belongingconstructs itself on the basis ofdifferences, of communication with

92 Council of Europe 2002.93 See Appendix 1.94 European Community 1992: article 8.95 European Commission 1998: 2.1.96 European Commission 1998: 1.2.97 Deem et al. 1995: 49.

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setting up large networks of monitoredpilot schools by itself.

The prospects of such an enterprisedepend on member states. We mayremember the 2002 Recommendation onEDC, where the Committee of Ministersexpressed its concern about ‘the growinglevels of political and civic apathy andlack of confidence in democraticinstitutions, as well as by the increasedcases of corruption, racism, xenophobia,aggressive nationalism, intolerance ofminorities, discrimination and socialexclusion, all of which are considered tobe major threats to the security, stabilityand growth of democratic societies’.92

The Recommendation also includedobligations for governments. The latterare asked to ensure that ‘as early as thepolicy-making stage, research andevaluation facilities are available forassessing the results, successes anddifficulties of educational policies’. It was also recommended that ‘eachstate's contribution to the European andinternational debate on education fordemocratic citizenship be reinforced byestablishing or consolidating Europeannetworks of practitioners and researchers,for experimenting on and developingeducation for democratic citizenship(“sites of citizenship”), educationalresources and documentation centresand research and assessment institutes.’

In other words, if EDC is to fulfil themember states' ambition to step up itsactivities in the field of setting up large-scale experiments, monitoring goodpractice and conducting research on thelevel of educational practice, it cannot go

on without a deeper commitment to EDCon the part of member states.

2.5 European UnionEducation is a primary governmentconcern in all European countries but the structures of the education systemsdiffer considerably, both within and amongmember states. The EU does not have acommon education policy; on the contrary,its role is to create a system of genuineco-operation between the member statesby preserving the rights of each in termsof the content and organization of itseducation and training systems.

The European dimension supplementsthe action taken by the member states inall areas of education. The challengefacing the European Union is to help topreserve the best of the diversity ofeducational experience in Europe, whileharnessing it to raise standards, removeobstacles to learning opportunities andmeet the educational requirements ofthe twenty-first century, includingglobalization and the information society.

2.5.1 Modes of actionAlthough the European Union does notintend to devise or implement a “commonEuropean policy” on education, it never-theless has specific ways of promotingco-operation in this field through actions atthe European level, which are motivatedby Articles 149 and 150 of the Treaty onthe European Union.93 In fact, there aretwo such ways.

Community action programmesFirstly, there are the community actionprogrammes in the field of education, like

SOCRATES, which stem from a co-decisionprocedure at the European level betweenthe Council and the European Parliament.

Open co-ordinationSecondly, member states and theCommission promote and facilitate “openco-ordination” among member states. In the field of education, this form of co-operation on policy issues has beenbuilt up principally over the past fewyears and in particular since the LisbonEuropean Council in March 2000.

The following paragraphs outline whatthe European Union has been up to in thepast decade for each of these modes ofaction, as far as learning to live togetheris concerned, and what activities are onthe agenda for the next few years.

2.5.2 Learning to live together in theEuropean UnionThe European Union does not use theterm “learning to live together” in settingits goals for European co-operation ineducation. Yet, as we shall see below, theEuropean Union, its member states andcitizens have grown increasingly awareof the need of learning to live together. In the course of the 1990s, the Europeantreaties, the white papers and studiesconducted by the Commission and in thecommunity action programmes, testify toa gradual enrichment of the concepts ofcitizenship and social cohesion and anincreasing awareness of the crucial roleof education in promoting them.

The concept of social cohesionSocial cohesion has been a commonEuropean policy objective for a decade

institutional ones. These three dimensionsturn up time and again in numerousEuropean studies on citizenship education:

The cognitive dimensionPeople need a basis of information andknowledge upon which they can takeaction, and do so with confidence.

The pragmatic dimensionPractising citizenship is about takingaction of some kind, and this is above alla matter of gaining experience in doing so.

The affective dimensionThe concept of active citizenship ultimatelyspeaks to the extent to which individualsand groups feel a sense of attachment tothe societies and communities to whichthey belong.104

Thus, in order to fulfil their citizenship,European citizens must be equipped withinformation and knowledge, with practicalexperience and a sense of attachment tothe communities to which they simulta-neously belong. Such stock-in-trade, it wasargued in “Learning for Active citizenship”,must be acquired by learning. Given thenature of contemporary economic andsocial change, it was pointed out, there islittle question that learning for citizenshipis not an optional extra but an integral partof the concept and practice of moderncitizenship.105

Learning for active citizenship, it wasmaintained, continues to include accessto the skills and competencies that youngpeople will need for effective economicparticipation under conditions of techno-logical modernization, economic

globalization and European labourmarkets. At the same time, however, thesocial and communicative competenciesthat are demanded in the new culturalcontext are of critical importance forliving in plural worlds.106

From local active citizenship toEuropean citizenshipIn promoting learning for active Europeancitizenship, the Commission continues, thelocal situation should be the starting point.Its strategy is to create local learningcommunities which enable the promotionof active citizenship at the local level butwhich are linked together at the nationaland European and global levels so as to promote local, regional, national andEuropean citizenship.

‘Community education, training and youthprogrammes can support individuals andgroups to exercise active citizenship byproviding opportunities to gain andpractise technical and social skills forprofessional, personal and civic life. [...]This process can take root most effectivelyat the local level in the first instance,where the European dimension acts as acatalyst for reflection upon the meaningsof community participation and identity“close to home”. Confidence in oneselfand one’s own local community culture isa prerequisite for a confident and positiveresponse to others, which is an importantfactor in building the foundation fordeveloping a sense of involvement andinclusion in wider regional, national andEuropean communities. Not only in form,but most importantly in substance,constructing European citizenship isinterdependent with and complementary

to local/regional communities of identityand national citizenship affiliations.’107

Active citizenship in the Europeaneducation programmesThis is where the Commission defines itsrole. The above ‘underlines the importanceof effective action in favour of learning foractive citizenship in the next generationof Community education, training andyouth programmes.’ Having examinedthe current education, training and youthprogrammes of the European Union, suchas SOCRATES (and, as far as the earlierphases of education are concerned, inparticular its Comenius strand), theCommission concludes that ‘they offerconsiderable scope for the promotion of learning for active citizenship, and the European dimension is an importantasset to that end’.108

Consequently, learning for active citizen-ship has become an important focus in thesecond generation of these programmes,which commenced in 2000. Severalinitiatives sponsored by the EuropeanProgrammes are based on the visions and

98 Cf. European Commission 1997a.99 Cf. European Commission 1997a.

100 Cf. European Commission 1997a.101 Cf. European Commission 1997a.102 Viz.: "the recognition of the dignity and centrality of the

human person"; "social citizenship, social rights andresponsibilities"; "egalitarian citizenship"; "interculturalcitizenship"; "ecological citizenship".

103 European Commission 1998. 104 European Commission 1998: 2.1.105 European Commission 1998: 2.1. 106 European Commission 1998: 2.2.107 European Commission 1998: 2.3. 108 European Commission 1998: 2.3.

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others, conflicts and negotiatedcompromises and shared images;

• it is a relational practice betweenindividuals in their social context at the level of state, local government,and associations.’98

The new ideas on the concept of citizen-ship have found their way into politicaldecision making. The Treaty of Amsterdamof 1997 foresaw the encouragement of amore active and participatory citizenshipin the life of the European Community.

2.5.3. Learning for active citizenshipAt the same time, it was realized thatactive citizenship, more than citizenshiptout court, is a cultural concept, which is closely linked to education. In 1996,the Commission set up a Study Groupcomprising 25 experts whose overallmission was to open up the debate onfuture developments in this area. In the introduction to their 1997 report theCommission observed that

‘It should go without saying that learningfor active citizenship lies at the heart of our civilization’s aspirations in thisregard. This means seeking to encouragepeople’s practical involvement in thedemocratic process at all levels, andmost particularly at the European level.[...] Turning a Europe of Knowledge intoreality importantly includes promoting a broader idea of citizenship, which can strengthen the meaning and theexperience of belonging to a sharedsocial and cultural community. Theactive engagement of citizens is part of that broader concept of citizenship,and the aim is that people take the

project of shaping the future into theirown hands.’99

In the report itself, which was entitledAccomplishing Europe through educationand training, the Study Group views theconstruction of European citizenship andmaintaining social cohesion as two of thefour aims of training and education in theyears ahead.100 The report stresses thateducation has an important role to play inthe promotion of active citizenship. ‘Undervarying names, education for citizenshipexists in many member states. It pursuesdifferent aims, taking up various amountsof the curriculum time and addressesitself to different age groups and targetgroups. If we wish to develop a sense ofbeing citizens of Europe amongst youngpeople, some improvement in this field istherefore necessary.’101

The report enumerates five dimensionsof citizenship102 and states that, in closeliaison with member states, Europe shouldtake action through education and trainingto consolidate European citizenship inthe three following domains:• to affirm and transmit the common values

upon which its civilization is founded;• to assist in devising and disseminating

ways of enabling young people to play a fuller part as European citizens, with a particular focus on teaching and learning;

• to identify and disseminate the bestpractices in education and training forcitizenship in order to filter out the bestmeans of acquiring the elements ofEuropean citizenship, and by initiatingexperimental projects which facilitateconcrete forms of implementation.

In the follow-up to the Treaty of Amsterdam,the European Commission worked outthe concept of active citizenship in aseries of papers and materials, includingthe in-depth study “Learning for Activecitizenship”.103 Here it is argued that theprinciples of European citizenship arebased on the shared values of inter-dependence, democracy, equality ofopportunity and mutual respect. Thepublication underlines the urgency ofrekindling the citizens' sense of belongingand engagement in the societies in whichthey live and of a modernized approachto the concept and practice of citizenshipin a European environment. It is pointedout that traditions and approaches tocitizenship may vary across Europe butthat they share the basic idea of demo-cratic citizenship in a modern society, i.e.,that active participation and commitmentto one's community support the creationof knowledge, responsibility, commonidentity and shared culture.

In other words: active European citizen-ship focuses neither on erasing possibledifferences between the citizenships ofvarious member states nor on thejudicial superposition of a new type ofEuropean citizenship on top of theexisting national ones, but on rallyingEuropean citizens to the civic values thatare already shared by European memberstates by definition, and are presentlybeing put to the test in the new contextof globalization, migration, and theinformation society.

In “Learning for Active citizenship”,active citizenship is said to involve threedimensions in addition to the legal and

indicators. The groups are mainly com-posed of experts designated by thegovernments of the member states of theEU. They should advise the Commission onthe implementation of the Open Method ofCo-ordination, more specifically on how“key issues” should be formulated and howthe instruments of the open Co-ordinationmethod could be applied to their area.

More particularly, the working groupsare expected to:• reach further agreement on EU-wide

common objectives, definitions,frameworks and recommendations;

• establish, where appropriate,quantitative and qualitativeindicators115 and benchmarks;116

• facilitate the translation of theEuropean common objectives intonational policies by exchanging goodpractices117 and peer monitoring;118

• provide an institutionalized follow-upmechanism.119

Education in the Lisbon follow-upThe Lisbon European Council had invitedthe ministers of education ‘to undertake ageneral reflection on the concrete futureobjectives of education systems, focusingon common concerns and priorities whilerespecting national diversity with a viewto [...] presenting a broader report to theEuropean council in the spring of 2001’.120

Stockholm 2001At the March 2001 Stockholm EuropeanCouncil, the Education Council of theEuropean Union presented a report onthe concrete future objectives ofeducation and training systems, on thebasis of a proposal from the Commission

and contributions from the memberstates.121 The report stressed, amongother things, the role of education andtraining systems in disseminating thefundamental values shared by Europeansocieties. It argued that the general goalsattributed by society to education andtraining go beyond equipping Europeansfor their professional life, in particularconcerning their personal developmentfor a better life and active citizenship indemocratic societies respecting culturaland linguistic diversity. The StockholmCouncil adopted the report and requesteda detailed work programme, to bepresented at the next spring meeting.122

Barcelona 2002In March 2002, at its Barcelona meeting,the European Council further set theobjective of making their educative andtraining systems ‘a world quality referenceby 2010’123 and called, in addition, forfurther action to promote the Europeandimension in education and its integrationinto pupils' basic skills by 2004.124

A detailed work programme was presentedto the Barcelona Council.125 Its objectivesincluded ‘supporting active citizenship,equal opportunities and social cohesion’.The programme reiterated ‘the essentialrole of education and training in enhancingthe level of qualification of people inEurope and hence in meeting not only theLisbon challenge, but also the broaderneeds of citizens and society’.126 Whileeducation and training systems need tochange in view of the challenges of theknowledge society and globalization, theypursue broader goals and have broaderresponsibilities to society. The education

systems, it is concluded, ‘play an importantrole in building up social cohesion, inpreventing discrimination, exclusion,racism and xenophobia and hence inpromoting tolerance and respect forhuman rights’.127

The cultural role of educationThe Council welcomed the work pro-gramme,128 which has consequentlybecome the guiding document onEuropean education policies in theframework of Open Co-ordination. It may be concluded that the broader roleof education, including its contribution to culture and social cohesion, is deeplyembedded in the European acquis.

This was once more emphasized by theBrussels European Council of March 20th

and 21st, 2003, which ‘considering thebroader role of education and its cultural aspects’, called on the EducationCouncil ‘to investigate ways of promotingthis role in a European perspective, fully respecting subsidiarity’, and toreport on the result to the 2005 SpringEuropean Council.129

109 SOCRATES Programme No. 2001-0928/001 SO2 81COMP.110 Manual 2003.111 European Commission 2004a.112 European Commission 2004b.113 European Commission 2004c: 10.114 European Council 2000: 1.115 I.e. data which can be monitored over time as an indication

of progress in the policy area involved.116 I.e. concrete quantitative or qualitative targets, for a

certain year or period in either absolute or relative figures.117 I.e. from which lessons can be drawn for future policy

development.118 I.e. which involves member states submitting measures to

review by other member states.119 Such as reporting systems and data collections.120 European Council 2000: 17 (paragraph 27).121 Education Council 2001.122 European Council 2001: 3 (paragraph 11).123 European Council 2002:18 (paragraph 43).124 European Council 2002:19 (paragraph 44).125 Education Council 2002.126 Education Council 2002: 4 (paragraph 1.4).127 Education Council 2002: 5 (paragraph 2.3).128 European Council 2002: 18 (paragraph 43).129 European Council 2003: 19 (paragraph 40).

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analysis presented in the paper, moreparticularly the preparation of theManual for the Promotion of ActiveEuropean Citizenship by the EuropeanAssociation of Teachers (AEDE).109 Theboxes in this chapter contain examples ofgood practice in the promotion of activecitizenship sponsored by the Comeniusprogramme and drawn from the excellentPart II of the manual.110

Active citizenship in future educationprogrammesThe present generation of EuropeanCommunity education programmes termi-nates in 2006. The European Commissionhas recently (2004) published guidelinesfor future programmes intended to replacethem.111 The programmes will be split into aneducation cluster and a citizenship cluster.

Making citizenship workIn its communication Making citizenshipwork, the Commission makes it clear thatit regards the promotion of citizenship asa top priority in the Youth, Culture andAudiovisual programmes, as well as in thenew programme Civic Participation.112

In it, the Commission proposes developingEuropean citizenship as one of the mainpriorities for EU action. It aims to pursuethis goal through promoting Europeanculture and diversity and encouraging thedirect involvement of European citizensin the integration process.

New education and training programmesIn its communication The New Generationof Community Education and TrainingProgrammes after 2006, the Commissionannounces an important restructuring of the education programmes. Learning

for active citizenship continues to be afocus.

‘Societies within the EU continue tobecome more culturally diverse and moreinterlinked with others, as a result ofglobalization and new communicationtechnologies on the one hand, and theimpact of the European single marketand migration on the other. This puts apremium on the development of inter-cultural understanding and respect andon the inculcation and reinforcement ofhabits of active citizenship.’113

Although the concept of learning foractive citizenship appears to be lessprominent in the future generation ofEuropean education programmes than inthe current generation (its explicit mentionis restricted to the context of lifelonglearning and with reference to theVocational Education and Training strand),the general objectives of the programmesleave ample opportunity for its pursuit.

The Lisbon strategyThe 2000 Lisbon European Council hasgiven a fresh impetus to the promotion of learning for active citizenship at theEuropean level. The Council affirmed the importance of new paradigms, bothfor the substance and the process ofEuropean co-operation.

The Lisbon ambitionAs to the substance: in response to thechallenges of globalization and theinformation society the EU set out itsnew strategic objectives for the comingdecade, stating its ambition to makeEurope, by 2010, the most competitive

and dynamic knowledge-based economyin the world, while simultaneouslystrengthening social cohesion. In settingdown this ambition, the Council accordededucation and training a central role inreaching these aims. As we shall seehereafter in the Lisbon follow-up, thisraised the interest among member statesfor education as an essential instrumentfor enhancing social cohesion.

The open method of co-ordination As to the process: to achieve theirambitious goals, governments asked fornot only a radical transformation of theEuropean economy, but also a challengingprogramme for the modernization ofsocial welfare and education systems.114

Member states agreed to pursue theLisbon ambition, not by delegating newcompetencies to the European level, butby developing open co-ordination as a newmode of action. The process of change iscarried out in each country according tonational contexts and traditions anddriven forward by co-operation betweenMember States at European level, throughthe sharing of experiences, workingtowards common goals and learning from what works best elsewhere. Openco-ordination includes the setting up ofmechanisms for defining and refiningobjectives to be reached so as to fulfilthe agreed ambition and on standards,indicators and benchmarks that enablemember states to assess their own andeach other's progress.

The European Commission supports thiswork by proposing work plans for imple-mentation and by setting up workinggroups, including a standing group on

The key competencies as rendered inAppendix 2 are presently being revised soas to accommodate the European dimen-sion in education and its integration intopupils' basic skills, as requested by the2002 Barcelona Council.134

Good practiceIn its 2003 progress report, Group B alsoprovides a survey of instances of goodpractice in various European countries,including some for civic education. Thereport concludes, however, that a numberof gaps were identified in respect of thefocus of the examples. For example, nogood practice in early years educationwas presented. A key weakness is, as theprogress report points out, also the lackof evidence that systems are in place formonitoring and evaluation.135 This pointwill turn up time and again in the findingspresented in this booklet.

Group G: social cohesion and activecitizenshipA second EU open co-ordination workinggroup to address issues related tolearning to live together in the wake ofthe Lisbon strategy is Group G (“Openlearning environment, active citizenshipand social inclusion”). This group has sofar focused strongly on lifelong learningand out-of-school education. However, bythe look of its November 2003 progressreport,136 some of its achievements arealso relevant to formal education ofchildren at primary and secondary level.

One of the issues Group G was asked toaddress was “ensuring that the learningof democratic values and democraticparticipation by all school partners is

effectively promoted in order to preparepeople for active citizenship”.

The group set out to identify key issueswithin the six areas of greatest interestwithin its mandate, to propose examples ofgood practice and to develop benchmarksand indicators for progress made by memberstates in these areas. It identified activecitizenship education as one of the areasof greatest interest. One of the identifiedkey issues is “ensuring that the learningof democratic values and democraticparticipation by all school partners iseffectively promoted in order to preparepeople for active citizenship”.

In its progress report, Group G makessome important observations that arerelevant to European policies on learningto live together.

The definition of social cohesionThe interpretation of the concept of socialcohesion relies on the European socialmodel and the corresponding Councildecisions and Commission initiatives. Inthis model, education and training havebeen treated until now only as a support-ing aspect of social cohesion. Workinggroup G ‘would like to review the definitionsin the light of the high priorities discussedand to make proposals for changes orupdates wherever this may be deemednecessary’.137 In other words, it may bedesirable to develop a European perceptionof social cohesion that puts education ina more central role.

School democracyChildren at school are young citizens.They should already be treated as such

at school age and should be taught how to become actively engaged indemocracy inside and outside schools.138

Sustainability of citizenship educationMore than any other field of education andtraining, active citizenship education needsregular updates by training the trainersand editing, updating and providing abroad diversity of learning material. Italso needs sustainable financial supportfor long term planning. Group G showedhigh interest in building up appropriatesupport structures for providers of activecitizenship education at all levels inorder to guarantee a sustainable highlevel of quality and independence.139

The relevance of key competenciesGroup G has taken note of the work ofGroup B on key competencies and willconsider the relevant proposals moreclosely in the near future.140

Developing indicators for learning tolive togetherGroup G discussed the question of con-structing input and output indicators for

130 Maes et al. 2003: 71.131 European Commission 2002. 132 European Commission 2003a: 34.133 European Commission 2003a: 48-58.134 European Council 2002: 19 (paragraph 44).135 European Commission 2003a: 35.136 European Commission 2003b. 137 European Commission 2003b: 9.138 European Commission 2003b: 8.139 European Commission 2003b: 15.140 European Commission 2003b: 15.

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The European working groups oneducationHaving analysed the Detailed WorkProgramme on Education, the EuropeanCommission entrusted its implementationto eight working groups, one for eachcluster, each group in majority consistingof experts designated by the governmentsof member states. Some member statesset up national expert groups accompanyingthe work of each of the working groups.

According to a Belgian evaluation of thework that has been done on the DetailedWork Programme so far, it was stated fromthe beginning that the working groupswere to be engaged in a political exercisefor the ministers and the heads of state.

‘The basic question would be asked indifferent states and for different issues:within the frameworks of the DetailedWork Programme and of the open co-ordination method, what do we want ourministers to do? This set the mandate of the working groups: established andco-ordinated by the European Commissionthey are expected to give expert andscientifically argued advice to the policymakers. They clearly work within thecontext of political decision making thathas already been made.‘130

Aspects of active European citizenship,social cohesion and learning to live togetherin general were part of the mandate ofseveral working groups. Besides the groupon teachers’ professionalism (Group A), twoworking groups paid special attention tothese aspects: Group B (“Basic Skills,Entrepreneurship and Foreign Languages”)and group G (“Open Learning Environment,

Active Citizenship and Social Inclusion”).Both working groups published theirlatest official progress reports to date in November 2003. The relevant workthat they have done on the subject issummarized below.

Group B: developing key competenciesGroup B was established in September 2001.Its mandate includes the identification ofbasic skills and their integration into thecurricula.

In its interim report of March 2002Group B identified eight domains of “keycompetencies”.131 For each set of keycompetencies, the group provided adefinition and outlines the correspondingknowledge, skills and attitudes. The workinggroup recommends, among other things,that the eight domains of key competenciesbe taken into consideration in formulatinga European framework to be embedded, asappropriate, within all national educationand training frameworks.

In other words, it is proposed to adopt thekey competencies as common objectivesfor education systems in member statesand to facilitate their translation intonational policies by exchange of good(policy) practices, peer monitoring andstudy visits, etc., in conformity with theprinciples of open co-ordination.

Moreover, Group B recommends that thedevelopment of key competencies be one ofthe overarching principles in Community-supported programmes in the fields ofeducation, employment and social affairs.Where necessary, indicators should bedeveloped for assessing progress in

pursuing these competencies in thepopulation. The key competencies wererevised when the candidate countriesjoined the group in January 2003.132

The list of key competencies published bygroup B in the annex to its November2003 progress report133 is probably amilestone in that it for the first timeaspires to provide a complete andtransparent analytical framework for the goals of European education policies.The complete list is reproduced inAppendix 2 of this booklet.

Learning to live together in the keycompetenciesThe list explicitly features a considerablenumber of competencies that are partand parcel of learning to live together;attitudes as well as knowledge and skills.

The “classic” attitudes relevant for learningto live together, such as understandingand appreciating differences betweenvalue systems, or willingness to participatein community decision making and dis-position to volunteer and to participatein civic activities have been allotted toInterpersonal, intercultural and socialcompetencies and to Civic competencies.However, several skills and attitudes that areequally relevant for learning to live togetherare subsumed under other competencies,such as Cultural awareness and Com-munication. Even an apparently “non-civic”competency such as Mathematicalliteracy turns out to include importantskills and attitudes that are required forliving together, such as critical thinking,respect for truth and willingness to lookfor reasons to support one's assertions.

141 European Commission 2003b: 16.142 European Commission 2003b: 18.143 European Commission 2004d.144 European Commission 2004d: 13.145 Manual 2003: 50.146 Manual 2003: 77-78.

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measuring the progress of member states’policies in pursuing the identified objectives.Such indicators are to be worked out anddeveloped by the Standing Group onIndicators (SGIB) of the Commission.

Group G made two proposals pertainingto learning to live together:141

• to develop an input indicator for educationfor democratic citizenship, based on dataon investment for the lessons taught innational curricula at school, in adultand youth education and vocationaltraining or special funds and institutions;

• to create a task force to check whetherthe following studies and surveys couldprovide enough reliable material for anoutput indicator for civic education: theCIVICs study; the CIVED Study of theInternational Association for Evaluationof Educational Achievement (IEA);DESECO (the OECD study on Competen-cies for Civic and Political Life in Demo-cracy); and finally the European valuessurveys upon which the World ValuesSurvey has been building since 1981.

According to the progress report, however,the SGIB accepted neither proposal,apparently for technical reasons. Group Gset out to consider in detail the argumentsgiven by the SGIB.142

The present state of active citizenshipin the Lisbon process In January 2004, the European Commissionpublished its working paper Progresstowards Common Objectives in Educationand Training: Indicators and Benchmarks.143

It contains 29 indicators to be applied formonitoring progress in the follow-up to theLisbon conclusions. The Commission re-

marks, however, that not all of the Lisbonobjectives have been covered so far.‘Very important areas such as [...] activecitizenship or European co-operation are not covered by indicators. In theseareas further work on the choice of – and where relevant the development of –indicators will have to be made.’144

2.6 Concluding remarks on the EULet us return to the long policy cycle descri-bed at the outset of this chapter and use it tocharacterize the role of the EU with respectto the civic deficit identified in Chapter 1.

It then appears that the EU in somerespects complements the roles of theother organizations discussed. The EU is not active in the early part of the cycle.Although Jacques Delors is a prominentEuropean personality, the Delors commis-sion, which set the agenda for the issue, wasset up by UNESCO. The EU does not producestrategic analyses specifically addressingthe problem, leaving the development ofnew ideas about social capital and cohesionup to the OECD. It does not set standardsfor education for democratic citizenshipor monitor compliance to them, thatbeing the task of the Council of Europe.

We have seen, on the other hand, thatEuropean member states are increasinglyaware of the necessity and urgency ofpursuing social cohesion and activecitizenship through education, i.e., oflearning to live together. Many memberstates of the EU have played an importantrole in the work of the other organizations.

Moreover, as we have seen, this awarenesshas produced a considerable consensus

in the EU itself, which is documented inthe conclusions of various Europeancouncils and has become quite specific inthe working groups in the framework ofthe process of open co-ordination, whichare made up of government-appointedexperts, as well as in numerous proposalspresented by practitioners of projects inthe Education and Youth programmes.

The question now is what the EU can do toenhance learning to live together in thosestages of the long policy cycle that typicallybelong to its competency and cannot becovered by the other organizations.

These stages are found in the lower stagesof the cycle, when an increase in scale mustbe accomplished. The strength of the EUis its mass. As we shall see in the followingchapters, an increase in scale shall pre-sently be in order. As we saw above, theEuropean work on good practice broughtto light a lack of evidence that systems arein place for monitoring and evaluation, aswell as a leeway in the development ofindicators for learning to live together.

This may indicate a need for large-scalepilots and experiments that are subjectto scientific monitoring, and a need forlong-term and mass evaluation ofeducation systems as a whole. There may be a considerable advantage insetting up broad internationally crossingprogrammes, enabling us to comparemethods and experiences systematically,while mass evaluation of systems is bydefinition an international enterprise.Before exploring this point, we shall first look at learning to live together from a few more angles.

L’Ecole de Minos 145

A Comenius project co-ordinated by the Collège les Sources, Le Mans (France). Pupilsaged 13 to 15 were given a grid to analyse the news on television. For several daysthey had to watch the news and write down the key topics covered. This informationwas communicated by the pupils of the 5 schools of the partnership to one another.The pupils compared the items on the news; they tried to understand why the topicsdiffered; they communicated with their counterparts via the Internet to obtain moreinformation and clarification. This was seen as a good exercise of media education witha European dimension, enhancing all kinds of skills such as reading, comprehension,communication and language. Pupils also acquired basic information about massmedia, such as television and newspapers, in the other countries of the partnership.

ISEM – Integration and socialization of ethnic minorities 146

A Comenius project which involves Sweden, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands andDenmark with a variety of institutions representing school education and localcommunity partners. ISEM is a three-year project in intercultural education whichaims at developing strategies to improve the quality of education available to socio-cultural minority groups and at developing measures in the field of socio-educationaland socio-occupational integration. The socio-educational approach in the projectaims at investigating and enhancing motivation measures towards active citizenshipthrough the concept of intercultural counselling, which aims at providing new citizenswith the tools required for social competence and multi-ethnic knowledge. Externalparticipation on a networking basis with social partners, parent organizations andmediators will be used as a means of intensifying adult participation and finding socialcohesion and cost efficiency with social policies. The socio-educational approach inthe project aims at establishing networks of companies and educational institutionsfor the creation of apprenticeship training places as means of recognition of “Learningby doing” for those who are not able to cope with the requirements of formal education.

Theme: Good practice of Citizenship Educationin the SOCRATES programme

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147 Manual 2003: 73-74. 148 Manual 2003: 65. 149 Manual 2003: 52. 150 Manual 2003: 48.

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INTHASOC - Interculturalidad y Habilidades Sociales 147

A Comenius project. The three-year project “INTHASOC. Interculturalidad y HabilidadesSociales” (Interculturality and Social Skills) has as its main objective to offer teachersprocedures and methodological resources that enable them to successfully confrontconflict in the school environment. The intention is to prevent social problems in schoolcaused by lack of social competence and the lack of acceptance of different points of view.Teaching staff should be prepared to develop new behaviour in the children, a behaviourthat makes them reflect upon the development of a form of conduct that makes livingtogether and accepting different cultures easier. This objective should in turn lead tointercultural communication among all those who want a school environment that favoursquality teaching for all students, irrespective of their cultural background. The mainactivities of the project are research, teacher training through courses, seminars andteamwork and activities that the teachers carry out directly with their pupils. The outcomeof the project is a report with the results of the research, a website, a classroommethodology, a training programme, a report including materials and educationalresources developed throughout the project and the dissemination of the obtained results.

A Celebration of Difference 148

The aim of this Comenius project with partners from the United Kingdom, France,Denmark, Spain and Sweden is to provide teachers in primary schools with qualitytraining courses and teaching materials, which will enable them to integrate knowledgeand respect for cultural diversity in Europe into their teaching programmes.The project focus is on the development of cross-curricular strategies and materials to bedeveloped and trained by practising teachers within a focus area specifically defined foreach year. Part one of the in-service training course focuses on “The origins of difference”and explores the theme of journeys in order to highlight the origins of cultural diversitywithin Europe, focusing among other things on migration. Part two is entitled “The

experience of difference” and explores the theme of conflict and settlement in order tohighlight the initial experiences of different cultures coming into contact in a Europeancontext. The third part is entitled “The accommodation of difference” and explores thetheme of “Living together” in order to highlight the resolution of conflict arising fromcultural differences in a European context.

Learning about democracy in Europe and about global citizenship149

A Comenius partnership of schools in France, Slovakia, Italy (Sicily) and Austria whichfocuses on pupils who are delegates of their peers within their schools and the way inwhich this contributes to enhance political citizenship. The four schools have describedtheir systems of pupils who are representatives of their peers and have exchangedinformation about this with one another. Pupils are trained to act as peer delegates inthe four following areas: capacity to manage autonomy, capacity to enhance opennesstowards others, capacity to take initiatives and the capacity to take responsibilities.Co-operation has been set up between the schools to train teachers, pupils and parentsin relation with the role of pupils as delegates or representatives of their peers.

DIPSIE: Democracy in Primary Schools in Europe150

The aim of this Comenius project is to develop an in-service training programme witha European dimension for primary and pre-school teachers that would assist them inteaching the concept of democracy. This proposal is a three-year endeavour submittedby institutions from four countries (the United Kingdom, Sweden, Portugal and Norway).A Comenius partnership of schools is also being set up to run parallel with this project.This partnership of schools is used as an interface for the materials and contents thatwill be developed within the framework of the DIPSIE project. The main activities areextensive ICT linking between the partners and schools involved to exchange ideas onteaching and learning about democracy in the primary school; educational visits and

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estonia• drama performance at aravete gymnasium, which includes

both primary and secondary education.

• in estonia, civics education is part of the regular

curriculum. discussion, group work, observation, analysis,

field trips and project work are the preferred methods.

• presentation of the results of the project week.

In the preceding chapter, we examinedthe work on social cohesion and citizen-ship being done in UNESCO, the OECD,the Council of Europe and the EuropeanUnion.

It was shown that in each of these multi-lateral organizations, European countrieshave achieved a considerable acquis onthe necessity of action to heed the civicdeficit through education. However, itwas also found that policy makers face aconsiderable lack of knowledge on whatpolicies work in promoting social cohesionand citizenship.

The European Union has promoted “activecitizenship” within its mandate throughits Education and Youth programmes.Besides, the working groups that havebeen set up to substantiate the Lisbonprocess have proposed sets of “keycompetencies” for European educationsystems that include civic competencies.No progress has been made thus far onthe development of indicators andbenchmarks for civic competencies.

In the present chapter, we shall be lookingat educational systems and educationalpolicies for learning to live together in themember states of the European Union. Itdraws mainly on recent surveys on Europeanpolicies for citizenship education, inparticular on the All-European Survey,conducted by the Education for DemocraticCitizenship programme of the Council ofEurope and published in 2004,152 as well ason an earlier survey by David Kerr153 andon some national and international surveyson the effects of citizenship education. AsEurydice is presently preparing a surveyon these matters, which is due to appearin the second half of 2004, the presentchapter can be brief.

In all EU countries, education traditionallyhas a generic socializing function preparingfor citizenship, be it consciously and directedor unconsciously and undirected. Countriesdiffer as to what extent their governmentsinterfere with the content of education.

The main conclusion of the All-Europeanstudy is that learning to live together – or,

in the terminology of the council, educationfor democratic citizenship – is now un-doubtedly on the public policy agenda in all European countries, regardless ofthe education system and cultural andpolitical specificity.154

The differences are to be found mainly inthe definition of citizenship education, theplace it holds in public policies and itsrelationship with overall education policies.Issues related to education for democraticcitizenship hold an essential place in

3 The national perspective

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conferences or seminars focusing on sub-topics of democracy in the primary school.Finally, a trial course will be organized for the EEP project teachers in advance of thetransnational course, which hopefully will be given several times. The main projectoutcome is a range of new resources and teaching methods for children, teachers andteacher trainers working with European citizenship and democracy in the primaryschools across Europe and beyond.

ECE: Education for Citizenship in Europe151

The purpose of this Comenius project is to develop a model for teacher training in thearea of citizenship, so that pupils will be able to participate actively in the roles andresponsibilities they will encounter in their adult lives as citizens of Europe. This is athree-year project partnership of institutions from five countries (Spain, France, theNetherlands, the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic). The project targets thelower secondary school. The working model to be employed by the project in pursuit of its aim is to consult with teachers in order to identify good practice both in terms ofcontent and teaching strategies. The modules will be developed based on this research.Guidelines for teachers will be developed once the modules have been evaluated. Aninternational in-service training seminar is planned for the third year of the project.This project takes as its rationale the renewed interest within many countries in theteaching of citizenship in schools and how this might contribute effectively to thedevelopment of active, democratic citizenship. To achieve this, it is necessary todevelop an approach to teaching and learning that is based on enquiries and actions.In order to effectively manage such teaching and learning, it is necessary to providespecific training for teachers and to develop a broad range of resources.

151 Manual 2003: 47-48.152 Birzea et al. 2004.153 Kerr 1999.154 Birzea et al. 2004: 12.

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policies employed by European governmentsto promote citizenship education .We distinguish four variables:• expected results: what outcomes do

governments expect for society?• regulatory instruments: what

educational goals have governmentslaid down in legislation?

• instruments for implementation: howdo governments interact with otherstakeholders to reach these goals?

• definition of contents: how specific are the learning goals they impose onthe curriculum?

3.2.1. Expected resultsIn general, by including education fordemocratic citizenship on their agenda,policy-makers expect the following typesof added value159: • help young people and adults to be

better prepared to exercise the rightsand responsibilities stipulated innational constitutions;

• help them to acquire the skills requiredfor active participation in the publicarena as responsible and criticalcitizens, as well as organized citizens(in civil society);

• increase interest in educational change,stimulate bottom-up innovation and thegrassroots initiatives of practitioners;

• encourage a holistic approach toeducation by including non-formal andinformal learning in education policies.

Concerning the role of the state, the All-European study shows that in all casesEDC policies were the outcome of statestructures, usually the ministry of educationor its equivalent. Regardless of its denomi-nation or the concrete organizational

settings, ministries of education areresponsible for defining, adopting andmonitoring EDC policies. EDC policy isconsidered to be an issue of interest to theeducation system as a whole and is conse-quently the responsibility of governmentstructures working in education.160

However, the state is more a multipleactor than a single and homogenous player.This conclusion is important for theimplementation of EDC policies. Initiatedby state and government structures, EDCpolicies become effective only to theextent to which they are assumed andimplemented by a great number of stake-holders and practitioners. This meansthat ownership of EDC policies is a keyfactor for effective implementation.

3.2.2 Regulatory instrumentsEDC policy statements incorporate threestandard issues:• a desired goal (e.g., a certain type of

citizenship);• a set of values that define this ideal

type of society;• a prescribed course of action.

There is a great diversity of regulatorydocuments on EDC. For the most partthey are legislative texts on education orthe constitution laws. Birzea concludesthat in general, EDC policy statements gono further than the first two elements. Inthe majority of the countries included in theanalysis the third element is lacking.161

Despite the extreme diversity of Europeancountries (historical, cultural, social andreligious), all national constitutions in-corporate the basic principles of democratic

citizenship. They contain explicit referencesto the three fundamental values of theCouncil of Europe, namely respect forhuman rights, pluralist democracy andthe rule of law. The outcome is a definiteconstitutional base for EDC policiesacross Europe.

National laws on education contain twotypes of references to EDC162:• In the general sense of overall education

aim (education for democracy,citizenship education, politicaleducation or democracy learning), EDC is perceived as a specific goal ofeducation policies. In this case, EDCappears either in the preamble ofeducation laws or as a separate chapter(e.g., Denmark, Finland, Germany,Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands,Norway, Poland, Portugal).

• In the restricted sense of school subject(civics or civic education), EDC is seenas a priority at the level of contents,curricula and teaching activities (e.g.,Austria, Cyprus, Latvia andLuxembourg).

155 Birzea et al. 2004: 19.156 Kerr 1999: 4-5.157 Kerr 1999: 9.158 Kerr 1999: 6.159 Birzea et al. 2004: 13.160 Birzea et al. 2004: 13.161 Birzea et al. 2004: 16.162 Birzea et al. 2004: 19.

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public policies. They are to be encounteredin many sectoral policies, especially in thoselinked to human resources development.Citizenship is considered to be at the coreof human capacity. Consequently, all policieson human resources development includetopics connected with education for demo-cratic citizenship, such as participation,empowerment, diversity, equity,multiculturalism and social cohesion.155

3.1 Diversity of approaches The citizenship education policies ofseveral member states of the EuropeanUnion are described in boxes in thisbooklet. It appears that countries varyconsiderably, both in terms of the urgencythey attach to citizenship education andin their specific adopted approaches.Kerr explains this diversity by referenceto a number of broad contextual factors.156

1 Historical traditionAn understanding of the tradition of howcitizenship rights have developed overdecades and centuries and the balanceachieved between rights and obligationsin each country is vital. It helps toexplain how underlying values, whichdefine how citizenship education hasbeen and continues to be approached inthat country, have evolved.

2 Geographical locationWhere a country is located also influenceshow citizenship education has been andcontinues to be approached. For example,Hungary and Germany are adapting to thecollapse of the Soviet empire.

3 Socio-political structureThe socio-political structure in a country

reinforces the values and traditionsunderpinning society and is the majorinfluence on the direction and handlingof legal, political, social and economicmatters. The degree of influence of thisfactor is dependent on a number ofvariables, most notably, the size of thecountry and the type of government.Worldwide, size and type range from thesmall, highly centralized, city-state ofSingapore to the much larger, federalstates of America. However, even countriessmall in size can have complex socio-political structures, such as Switzerlandwith its mix of Italian, French and Germanspeaking cantons. Changes in the socio-political structure have had, and continueto have, a profound effect on citizenshipeducation. This is very evident in moderntimes. The growth of more centralizedbureaucracies, even in federal systems,with their increasing influence and controlover education systems, means thatchanges in government assume greaterimportance.

4 Economic systemThis factor is important at both the microlevel of national economies and the macrolevel of moves to create larger supranationaltrading blocs, such as the European Union,and international trade agreements, suchas GATT. It means that the micro is in-creasingly being influenced by the macro,thereby creating a number of challengesfor citizenship education. Many countries,particularly those in Europe, have to dealwith the impact of the migration of workers,both invited and uninvited, across nationalborders. These challenges present a mixtureof opportunity and threat, as shown inthe countries’ attitudes towards the

European Union. The EU offers greatereconomic and political cohesion on theone hand, but threatens national identityand self-determination on the other.

5 Global trendsFinally, Kerr points to the various degreesof awareness in European countries as tothe challenges, which were touched uponin Chapter 1, presented by the global trendsthat have bearing on social cohesion andcitizenship.

The broad contextual factors outlinedabove influence the nature of a numberof detailed structural factors concerningthe organization of the system of govern-ment and education in each country.These structural factors are importantbecause they impact not only on thedefinition and approach to citizenshipeducation but also on the size of the gapbetween the rhetoric of policy (what isintended) and the practice (what actuallyhappens) in citizenship education.

As Kerr concluded in his 1999 study, the education system is a vital part of theresponse to the aforementioned challenges.Although countries have similar sets ofnational aims in dealing with thesechallenges and issues, including the aimof promoting citizenship and democraticvalues, they approach those aims inmany different ways.157 How education isorganized and how responsibilities areheld by governments within educationsystems is an important structural factor.158

3.2 European policies aimed atpromoting citizenship educationThe following paragraphs outline the

explicitly which values and attitudesshould be developed in citizens. Schoolsdo have the responsibility to teach futurecitizens’ skills such as reading, writing,gathering and assessing information andto enable them to make well-consideredchoices, discover and formulate theirown values and keep the law. This impliesfocusing attention on emancipation andintercultural education in order tocontribute to the (statutory) principle ofequality. Although it is generally recognizedthat schools have a so-called "moraltask", it is up to the schools to decidehow they work this out.

This provides schools with the option toassign a low profile to the moral task anddoing only the minimum legally prescribed,concentrating on individual educationalachievement, the goals of which have beenspecified by the government in more detail.

De Winter has recently pointed to the risksof this choice. According to him, pedago-gues and educationalists who concentrateexclusively on individual learning goalshave lost sight of the public goals thateducation is also expected to serve.

‘Whether you look at the attainmenttargets that prescribe what children areto learn in primary education, at coursesfor education support or at council plansfor youth policy, they always concernindividual goals, expecting children todevelop and acquire a diversity of know-ledge and skills.’167

Translated into the terms of the DelorsCommission (cf. Chapter 2), De Winter'sobservation implies that core learning

objectives tend to focus on learning toknow, learning to do and learning to be,while neglecting learning to live together,to the detriment of the public interest.The slogan “not to bother with the socialinterest” seems to apply both to specificgroups of non-native young people whowere not raised with an affinity for thedemocratic lifestyle and to native young-sters who were raised with a culture ofindividualism.

If schools are given the freedom to workout the moral task themselves, De Wintercontinues, this usually comes down to acouple of hours of social education in asubject such as social studies. Howeverimportant this may be as such, he claimsthat a theme like citizenship educationshould be formulated much morepersuasively so that all schools will putgreater efforts into it on a structural basis.

‘A democratic offensive at school, whichstarts at a very early age, not with heavysocial studies, but by explaining to aninfant why he/she cannot have all the toysto him- or herself because there are rulesfor living together. Older children can bemade aware of this by discussing anddetermining social rules so that class-mates are not put at a disadvantage.’

However, this is not the whole story.There are also schools in the Netherlandsthat have formulated a clear mission withrespect to the approach and direction of theschool in educating its pupil population,in response to the wishes of the parentsor because schools themselves havetaken up their responsibility for the roleof education in shaping future society.

The latter category of schools is on theincrease as a result of the influence ofthe attention for the moral task of edu-cation in the media, such as the citedarticle on De Winter, as well as thepractical fact that inculcating civicbehaviour in youngsters is conducive toreaching individual learning goals aswell. Behaviour-related problems atschool require solutions if a climate forlearning is to be created.

Thus, the question whether a detailedexpression of values to be transmitted ineducation in the government curriculumis necessary and productive has notreached a definitive solution.

3.3 Trends in government influenceon the curriculumIn terms of formal curriculum provisionsfor education for democratic citizenship,Birzea has noted several interestingregional trends168:• EDC appears as a separate subject,

especially in Southeast, Central andEast European regions, where thepolitical changes of the 1990s led to a

163 Birzea et al. 2004: 15-16.164 Le Métais 1997: 5.165 Agency for Education 2000.166 Agency for Education 2000.167 Kreulen 2004 (interview with professor Micha de Winter).168 Birzea et al. 2004: 21.

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3.2.3 Instruments forimplementationAccording to the data in national andregional studies, governments, stakeholdersand practitioners interact in various forms.There seem to be four prevailing modelsof interaction: information, consultation,partnership and alternative action.163

InformationInformation implies a one-way relation-ship in which public administrationproduces and makes EDC policiesaccessible. Examples are:• “Program of Civic Education

Implementation in the EducationInstitutions” (Lithuania);

• “Learning Democracy” (Austria);• “Strategic Plan” (Malta);• “Values in Practice” (Denmark);• “White Paper” (Slovenia).

ConsultationConsultation implies a two-way relation-ship through which practitioners andstakeholders provide feedback to thegovernment. Examples are:• Association of Civics Teachers (Slovakia);• Politische Bildung Online (Germany);• Consultation of the Union of School

Leaders (Sweden);• Civic Education Study (Nordic Countries).

PartnershipPartnership presupposes active par-ticipation and the exercise of sharedresponsibility in joint structures.Examples are:• “States General of the School” (Italy);• “Association for Citizenship Teaching”

(England);• Local Area Partnerships (Ireland);

• Student circles and student self-governments (Hungary);

• Parents Council (Poland).

Alternative actionAlternative action consists of a bottom-upapproach, based on grassroots initiativesby practitioners and local stakeholders.Examples are:• “Experimental and Pilot Program on

EDC” (Greece);• “The Voice of Youth” in Helsinki

2000–2005 (Finland, see Chapter 4);• “Democracy Centre” (Austria);• Jaan To~nnison Institute (Estonia);• Civic Education Project (Czech Republic);• Civic education in self-government

schools (Poland, see Chapter 4).

3.2.4 Definition of contentsCountries differ as to the degree of detailby which governments specify the learninggoals of civic education.

In regard to the control that governmentsexercise on the non-cognitive values andaims pursued in education, Le Métais distin-guishes three categories of countries.164

1 Minimal reference to values ineducation legislationThe countries in this group share acommitment to pluralism and devolvedauthority. Values are expressed in theconstitution and/or statutes, which providea framework for the expression of valuesthrough devolved educational structures.

2 National values expressed in generaltermsIn this group of countries, general state-ments on values are made at a national

level but the details are determined byauthorities with devolved responsibilities.

3 National values expressed in detailCountries with highly centralized systemstend to express very detailed aims andclear educational and social values.

SwedenSweden is rather specific in expressingvalues in the curriculum. As its educationact puts it,

‘Education should equip pupils withknowledge and skills and, by workingtogether with their home situation,further a harmonious development ofresponsible people and members ofsociety. [...] All activities in schools willbe carried out in accordance withfundamental democratic values.’

This is worked out in the NationalCurriculum as: ‘the inviolability of humanlife, individual freedom and integrity,equal rights for all people, equalitybetween women and men and solidaritywith weak and vulnerable people arevalues to be demonstrated andsafeguarded by the school.’165

To achieve the latter through a nationalcampaign suggestions were recentlyproduced for child care centres as well asschools to convey democratic principles.The premise being that democraticeducation is not so much an educationalcontent but is rather reflected in socialbehaviour and the school climate.166

In the Netherlands the government doesnot, or to a very limited extent, prescribe

for students to be involved in activecitizenship activities through schoolcouncils and clubs both in and outsideschool. However, the study showed that only ten per cent of the students had participated in a school council.Involvement also showed signs ofdecreasing with age, as students movedthrough the school. Less than one thirdof students (27 per cent) felt that theywere consulted when school policieswere being developed.

2 Students' knowledge, attitudes andtrust:• Not all the students understood what

was meant by citizenship. However,those that did, defined it in termssimilar to the three citizenship strandsset out in official documents, with anemphasis on community, national andEuropean involvement, global identity,political literacy and awareness andsocial and moral responsibility.

• Students’ depth of understanding offundamental democratic values andinstitutions was shown to be limited.There is evidence that understandingimproves with age, but that there arestill significant gaps in students'understanding of such key citizenshiptopics as democracy and thefunctioning of democratic institutions.

• With the exception of voting (66% of allstudents report they intend to vote innational elections), there is scepticismamong students in England abouttraditional forms of civic and politicalengagement. The students also showeda low level of interest in participatingin other forms of civic life which isrelated to voluntary organizations,

both in and outside the school.Moreover, young people mentionedthat they have low trust in politiciansand government-related andinternational institutions. In contrast,they have more trust in theirimmediate social groups like family,neighbours, teachers and friends.

The findings from this first survey needto be treated with some caution at thisstage. The results nevertheless showimportant information for thedevelopment of effective policy andpractice in citizenship education.

3.4.3 International comparativestudiesIn 1999 the International Association for theEvaluation of Educational Achievement(IEA) published a qualitative survey oncivic education in 24 countries.173 Thedata collected summarize what panels ofdiverse experts in each participatingcountry believe that 14-year-olds shouldknow about eighteen topics, includingelections, individual rights, nationalidentity, political participation, organiza-tions which characterize civil society,relations of economics to politics andrespect for ethnic and political diversity.

Torney-Purta et al. conclude that, in spiteof all differences, there is a common coreof content topics across countries in civiceducation. Moreover, countries share acommon problem, that of the existenceof gaps (very large in some countries)between the ideals stated for this subjectarea and the realities of what happens inschools, classrooms and neighbourhoodsand finally, the outcomes for students.174

In 2001, the IEA published a study intothe effects of citizenship education in 28countries, most of which were European.175

Nationally representative samples ofnearly 90,000 students in the appropriateschool year for 14-year-olds in 28 countrieswere surveyed on topics ranging fromtheir knowledge of fundamental demo-cratic principles and skills in interpretingpolitical information to their attitudestoward government and willingness toparticipate in civic activity. In 2002,another follow-up study was made byTorney-Purta and her team. This study on citizenship education involved 50,000upper secondary students from 16 coun-tries.176 The upper secondary studentswere given a cognitive test and were alsotested on their behaviour and attitudes.

The results prompt the conclusion thatcertain conditions are required to makecitizenship education work. The studiesshow that:1 Schools with a democratic working

method – like discussion techniquesinvolving students in decision-makingprocesses – achieve the best results

169 Birzea et al. 2004: 21.170 Birzea et al. 2004: 21.171 Thélot 2000: 143-165.172 Kerr et al. 2003.173 Torney-Purta et al. 1999a.174 Torney-Purta et al. 1999b: 34.175 Torney-Purta et al. 2001.176 Amadeo et al. 2002.

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need for greater curricular support forEDC in the form of a specific andmandatory subject.

• The integrated approach prevails inwest and north European reports. In most cases, EDC is a non-statutorypart of the curriculum.

• In southern Europe the mixed modelprevails: the cross-curricular andintegrated approach coexist with EDCas a specific subject.

• In all regions the integrated approachis prevalent in primary education. EDCas a separate subject is more frequentin secondary education (ISCED levels 2and 3).

However, Birzea also notesdiscrepancies169:• Although all countries claim EDC is

a priority goal, actual curriculumprovisions prove to be insufficient;

• Not all curriculum documents containreferences to the skills andcompetencies, values and personaldispositions required by EDC as a keyarea of learning;

• In some cases EDC curricula are basedon analysis of concrete learningconditions. There are, however, manysituations where we have merely animitation or reflection of externalexperiences motivated by politicalcorrectness concerns rather than ananalysis of concrete learning needs.

ConclusionOn the level of national policy-making,the formulation of goals and perspectivesis intentional, not operational. In hissynthesis of the All-European study,Birzea concludes that:

• Gaps persist between the central positionof EDC in education policies andeffective formal curriculum provisions.In other words, formal provisions for EDCindicate what could be called a com-pliance gap between policy intentions,policy delivery and effective practice.

• It is obvious that due to increasedpressure on the formal curriculum as the main provider of learningsituations, the manoeuvring space for EDC is quite limited. The solutionalready envisaged in most Europeancountries is to increasingly involvenon-formal and informal learning asalternative providers of EDC.170

3.4 The effects of learning to livetogetherAs was noted by almost everyone involved,there is a considerable amount of uncer-tainty about the effects and outcomes ofcitizenship education. Few in-depth socio-scientific studies have so far been con-ducted in Europe. They are discussed below.

3.4.1 Effect studies in FranceIn France a new compulsory subject wasintroduced in 2001: “éducation civique,juridique et sociale” for the “lycées”(age-group 15 to 18), which continuesfrom the “éducation civique” for youngerpupils in the “collège” (age-group 11 to 14)and the “école élémentaire” (age-group 5to 10). Effect measurements are not yetavailable for this new compulsory subject.For the French situation the followingeffects of other citizenship programmescan be noted.171

1 The pupils’ skills with regard to citizen-ship increase between the ages of 11–12and 17-18.

2 Citizenship education also proved to beeffective to a certain extent.

3 Citizenship behaviour has proved to bedifficult to assess. During the perfor-mance of some simulations it was shownthat tolerance increases during theschool period: 17–18 year-olds prove tobe more tolerant than 11–12 year-olds.Their respect for rules and legislation,however, decreases during the schoolyears, especially towards rules at school.This decrease could also be attributedto the school. The complaining pupilsblame it on the role and the behaviourof the teacher.

3.4.2 Longitudinal study in EnglandThe Department for Education and Skills(DfES) has commissioned the NationalFoundation for Educational Research(NFER) to undertake a longitudinal studyin citizenship education over eight years.The first cohort of the study started inSeptember 2002, with pupils who enteredthe first year of secondary school.

The overarching aim of this study is toassess short-term and also long-termeffects of citizenship education on thecomponents of knowledge, skills, attitudesand the behaviour of students. The studypromises to be of significant value forcitizenship education, not only in Englandbut also in other countries across the world.The first annual report from the study,reporting on the first cross-sectionalsurvey, was published in 2003.172 Somekey findings are described below.

1 Existing approaches to citizenshipeducation: Schools provide various opportunities

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with regard to social knowledge andengagements. With this method ofparticipation students are able toacquire a more profound knowledge of civic topics.

2 The family, the community and the mediaplay important roles with regard to theamount and the quality of knowledge ofcitizenship topics. The Torney–Purtastudy showed that in countries with atradition of democracy and countrieswhich had recently achieved democracy,results on the role of family were aboutthe same.

3 The didactic classroom discussions,participation of students in studentcouncils or other organizations, edu-cation on the media and projects inwhich the community plays a role, may all strengthen citizenship.

In addition to the effects that were found,the following studies can be mentioned.• A Scandinavian study shows a positive

relationship between the level ofopenness in the class climate andknowledge of the processes in society,confidence in social institutions, aswell as a positive attitude towardsimmigrants and rights for women177. An open class climate suggests thatthere are discussions about politicaland social topics, which will stimulatethe students to adopt and express theirown opinions.178

• Young people who experience thatenvironments like their homes and schoolsvalue them well, have a considerablylower chance of getting psychologicalproblems, dropping out of school orgetting involved in criminal activities.179

• The chairman of the Belgian support

office for student participation, Prof.Dr Paul Mahieu, claims that participationin activities around the school will leadto more participation in citizenshipactivities. Schools which organizeevents and activities in which studentsare required to participate, result instudents and teachers who are moresatisfied. Factors like satisfaction,well-being and the feeling of controlcontribute to a positive school climate.180

• Service learning also has a positiveeffect on socio-emotional development.Students who took part in the success-ful service-learning programs areconsidered more “responsible” than the comparable group. They were alsoconsidered socially more competentand more prepared to help others. Atthe same time, the study showed thatthese students were less ready to adoptrisky behaviour.181

Although the available results provide someindications on the effects of citizenshipeducation, neither national nor internationalanalyses provide a great deal of evidence onwhat exactly works in citizenship education,especially as far as acquiring attitudes isconcerned, let alone the question ofwhether these attitudes take root.

In his opening speech to a conference ofeducation inspectors and researchers onraising the effectiveness of citizenshipeducation,182 Seamus Hegarty stated thateducational policy, including citizenshipeducation, is subject to numerousinfluences, of which empirical evidenceis only one. As he said, it is important tounderstand these influences and to beaware of the different kinds of evidence

and, specifically, the sorts of evidencegenerated by research and inspection,respectively. They have distinctepistemological postulates and makecomplementary contributions to theknowledge base for policy making.

In other words, when pursuing policies to promote citizenship education, it isexpedient that governments take empiricalevidence on the implementation of theirpolicies in educational practice intoaccount. They should therefore ensurethat such evidence is generated, boththrough research and inspection. Finally, they should seek to warrant thetranslation of the results into evidence-based policies.

177 Agency for Education 2000.178 Muck 2001.179 De Winter 2000.180 Mahieu 2001.181 Billig 2000. 182 CIDREE 2002: 9-12.183 Glenn & De Groof 2002: 511.184 Naval et al. 2003; Glenn & De Groof 2002: 495.185 Glenn & De Groof 2002: 511.

Civic education in SpainCivic education was part of the educational reform programme contained in the GeneralLaw for the Regulation of the Spanish Educational System (LOGSE 1990). Schools wereobliged from that moment to develop moral values in all areas of personal, family,social and professional life.183 This idea was recognized and accepted, at least intheory, as part of the school curriculum. Policies or laws in relation to civic educationissued by the national government are usually expressed in broad terms that providesufficient parameters to define the scope, the sequence and the implementation ofcivic education. It is the responsibility of each “autonomous region” (ComunidadesAutónomas) to specify in greater detail the provisions of a national policy.184

Civic education has been incorporated, in part, within the Spanish school curriculumin three principal ways:1 Civic education is explicitly included as cross-curricular theme and is presented under

the title “Moral and Civic Education” at pre-school education (0 to 6 year-olds); primaryeducation (6 to 12 year-olds); secondary compulsory education (12 to 16 year-olds).

2 In primary schools, civic education is related to the knowledge area of natural, socialand cultural environment. Consequently, it is not compulsory and integrated in the 170hours per year dedicated to this domain. According to Glenn and De Groof, the primaryschools have to ensure that each child appreciates the basic values which governhuman life and co-existence and prove that he/she is in agreement with them.

3 Similarly, in secondary schools, civic education is linked to history, geography, and thesocial sciences, where it is considered separately but integrated and not compulsory,although students should, according to the 1990 LODE law, be familiar with the basicbeliefs, attitudes and values of the Spanish tradition and cultural heritage.185

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186 MEC 1992.187 Losito 2003 b: 3. 188 Losito 1999: 399.189 Losito 2003b: 3. 190 Strajn 1999: 546.191 Strajn 1999: 552.

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In short, the following are the goals of moral and civic education within the frameworkof the LOGSE:1 To develop the ability to critically analyse the prevailing injustices and social norms;2 To develop the ability to construct general principles that concern values, in a way

that is autonomous, rational and open to dialogue;3 To foment behaviour according to the principles and norms that the individual has

personally determined;4 To succeed in passing on the norms that are democratically agreed upon in society in

the pursuit of justice and the welfare of all.186

Civic education in ItalyIn the Italian school system, civic education is seen as one of the fundamental aims ofschool education as a whole.187 All the general introductions to curricula in force in thevarious school levels refer to the Italian constitution and to the fundamental rights andduties of citizens that it specifies and guarantees. From what has been said so far, it isquite clear that the term “civic education” is used in a very broad manner in the Italianschool system, and refers to ‘that sphere of values and issues essentially concerning thedomain of the citizen, without, however, neglecting its connections with ethical, civil,social and economic issues relating to the person and worker’, as established in a Ministryof Education directive (Educazione civica e cultura costituzionale, no. 58, 8 February 1996).

Civic education is essentially characterized as education for democracy, for the exercisingof citizen's rights and duties, and for democratic living together, with full respect forsocial and cultural differences. Not only the cognitive dimension is involved here, butalso the affective-experiential dimension, ‘which includes the forming of values’.188

The programmes of the lower and upper secondary school feature the subject of “civiceducation”, which is taught in conjunction with history. The topic of “democracy” playsa particularly important role in civic education, because it refers to the Italian constitutionand thus to democracy.

The actual implementation of the directive largely depends on the interest and willing-ness of teachers within each school to set up projects and initiatives in this field. Thesame thing can be said for human rights education and the ministry circulars issued inthis field.189 The circulars tend to bridge a very noticeable gap in school curricula. Thecivic education curricula of compulsory education do not explicitly refer to the teachingof human rights, except by referring to the Italian constitution.

Citizenship education in SloveniaThe political changes in the beginning of the 1990s had consequences for the contentof the Slovenian curriculum. The emphasis in education is on democratic values, newrules for social behaviour and the sovereign society.190

National identity, tolerance and critical judgement are important elements of civiceducation. The concept of citizenship is not explicitly included in the aims of compulsoryeducation. It is present in a more implicit form, in the expression ‘to develop the abilityto live in a democratic society’. The minimum consensus about citizenship education is toteach individuals to comprehend social complexities and to make them able to participatein the democratic system.191

When the Primary Education Act was adopted by parliament, a subject entitled civiceducation was not included in the list of compulsory subjects. The list did include thesubject of “ethics and society”. Its name was changed, following negotiations between

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finland• roihuvuori school in helsinki has mixed age groups. it allows

students to have bigger and smaller “sisters” and “brothers”

in school, while in finland few families have more than one

or two children.

• in the “voice of the young” campaign, students elected a

7-year-old italian first grader as the president of the

student body. he initially needed someone to read the

meeting agendas.

• helsinki city school department also had some difficulties

accepting the democratic decision of the students, so the

student body had to send a 12-year-old secretary instead

to represent the school at the city meetings.

• central themes of students’ projects on europe were

“borders”, “nations” and “freedom”.

192 Simenc 2003.193 Scottish Executive 2000.194 Learning and Teaching Scotland a; Learning and Teaching

Scotland b.195 National Council for Curriculum and Assessment 2003.196 National Council for Curriculum and Assessment 1998.

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the parties of the coalition government, to “citizenship education and ethics”. This showsthat citizenship education is one of the privileged places where newly-created democracydefines itself.192

“Civic education” in ScotlandEducation for Citizenship is a national priority, many features of which are underpinnedby legislation such as the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Standards in Scotland’s schoolsetc. Act. 2000.

In Scotland the 5–14 curriculum is not prescribed by statute.193 Responsibility for themanagement and delivery of the curriculum lies with education authorities and headteachers, or in the case of independent schools, the boards of governors and head teachers.However, broad guidance is produced by the Scottish Executive Education Departmentand Learning and Teaching Scotland. Their advice and guidance seek to ensure thatthe curriculum secures breadth, balance, continuity and progression for all pupils.

In primary and secondary education, the aim of citizenship education for the pupils isparticipation in the activities of the school. The framework “education for citizenship”guides the pupils in gaining knowledge and understanding of:• contemporary social, political, economic, cultural and ethical issues;• individual and social needs and the consequences of actions taken by them;• rights and responsibilities in a democratic society;• conflict and decision-making processes, including the influence of the media.

In short, young people should discover that there are different ways to live in a society.Youths should learn to think for themselves as active citizens, willing, able and equippedto have an influence in public life. The main goal is to develop capacities for responsible

participation in political, economic, social and cultural life in a society.194 Of course, insecondary education the factor of understanding the world around the pupils plays a moreimportant role.

Education for citizenship takes place in several contexts. Firstly, there is the curriculum.Secondly, cross-curricular connections can be established between subjects and betweenin-school and out-of-school learning. Thirdly, education for citizenship takes place inissues linked to the school and fourthly, students should participate in decision making.

Citizenship education in IrelandCitizenship education is included in the subject “Social, Personal and Health Education”(SPHE). SPHE plays an important role in developing an understanding of the democraticway of life and individual and group rights and responsibilities.195 It provides opportunitiesfor children to learn about, and actively participate in, the various communities towhich they belong and to develop a sense of shared commitment. It can also help themto value and take pride in their national, European and global identities and come to anunderstanding of what it means to be a citizen in the widest sense.

The general aims and principles of Civic, Social and Political Education concord whollywith those of the Junior Certificate programme. One of the overarching aims of theIreland National Development Plan for 2000 to 2006 is to promote social inclusion.196

This is followed up in the Department for Education and Science mission statement ina specific objective to enable students to develop their full potential as persons and toparticipate fully as citizens in society.

Key concerns of civic, social and political education are, in particular, the aims that theJunior Certificate programme should develop the pupils' personal and social confidence,

197 Glenn & De Groof 2002: 417.198 Menezes 2003:3.199 Kerr 2003:18.

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contribute to their moral development and prepare them for the responsibilities ofcitizenship.

The main purpose of this Junior Certificate course in civic, social and political educationis to provide the pupil with a concentrated and dedicated focus on all aspects of thisarea of education, with particular emphasis on the importance of active, participatorycitizenship to the life of the young person in society. It is envisaged that this course willalso provide pupils with a central reference point for those aspects of civic, social andpolitical education which they learn about through other subject disciplines and throughtheir daily school life.

Civic education in PortugalPortugal’s entry into the European Economic Community in 1985, with the correspondingimplications on educational policies, together with the emergence of a period of politicalstability, allowed for a consensus regarding educational issues resulting in the approvalof the 1986 Education Act.197 Basic (compulsory) education was extended to 9 years,and the Education Act clearly stated the promotion of active and critical citizens as agoal of education. In Article 48, the Act specifically previewed the creation of an areaof personal and social education (PSE) in basic education including such themes as sexand family education, health education, environmental education and civic education.

The typical curricular strategies for operationalizing PSE included cross-curricularinfusion or dissemination of themes or skills, and/or the creation or reorganization ofspecific subjects or project areas for addressing these issues, including ethics or civics.

In 1989, PSE was finally instituted as a cross-disciplinary theme to be addressed by allsubjects, as the object of a multidisciplinary project area (including a compulsory

civic education programme for grades 7 to 9), and as a specific subject (Personal andSocial Development) alternative to Moral and Religious Education.198 The impact of theintense discussions on PSE during the 1989 Reform is still noticeable.

In 1995 education was stated as a major priority. An intense effort was made with regardto pre-school education, and the need to balance the democratization of access toeducation with quality of learning in a country with persistent high levels of educationalfailure and drop-out led to a process of “curricular reorganization” that emphasizedintegration, diversity and citizenship.

Civic education in FranceFrench society and its education system are founded on a platform of principles andrepublican values, which have their roots in Concorcet and in the Declaration of Humanand Civic Rights of 1789. These establish the principles of:• Secularity – the public nature of education and the prohibition of any kind of religious

propaganda at school;• Liberty;• Equality – the school is open to all without any discrimination.

The current education system is based on the Orientation Act of July 1989 (the Jospin Act),which is the first act in the history of the French republic to cover the whole educationsystem. This Act sets education as the first national priority and establishes four mainmissions of the schools, including:• development of the personality of young people and their sense of citizenship;• contribution to the equality of opportunities and to the reduction of inequalities

resulting from individual or social handicaps.199

200 Kerr 2003: 26.201 Kerr 2003: 22.202 Crick 1998: 7.203 Onderwijsraad 2003.204 Letter by the Dutch Minister of Education, Culture and

Science to the government, dated 23 April 2004, ref.no.PO/OO/2004/19279 concerning Education, Integration andCitizenship.

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In France, EDC is a statutory curriculum subject. By the end of the first cycle of elementaryschool education (children aged 6–8), children are expected to have begun to developappropriate social behaviour, respect for self and for others and to be learning the rulesfor living in harmony with others.200

By the end of elementary school education, children aged 11 are expected to respectthe rules and values in school and to be aware of the individual's responsibility in society.All subjects, not only civics education, are expected to contribute to this awareness. In addition, the pupils should have some understanding of the political system andinstitutions in France.

Revised guidelines and a revised syllabus for lower secondary civics education wereintroduced in 1996. The syllabus is progressive in that the basic concepts ofcitizenship are explored in different contexts, moving from the near and concrete tothe general and the abstract.

Schools have been given the option of flexible time-tabling for citizenship education.In secondary schools, between thirty minutes and one hour per week is allocated tocivics education. In the collège, civics education is normally taught by history andgeography teachers.

Citizenship education in EnglandA new statutory subject entitled Citizenship has been introduced for pupils aged 11 to16 as part of the National Curriculum. Citizenship is important because:

‘Citizenship gives pupils the knowledge, skills and understanding to play an effective rolein society at local, national and international levels. It helps them to become informed,

thoughtful and responsible citizens who are aware of their duties and rights. It promotestheir spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, making them more self-confidentand responsible both in and beyond the classroom. It encourages pupils to play a helpfulpart in the life of their schools, neighbourhoods, communities and the wider world. It alsoteaches them about our economy and democratic institutions and values; encouragesrespect for different national, religious and ethnic identities and develops pupils’ abilityto reflect on issues and take part in discussions’.201

The central aim of strengthening citizenship education in England is to effect:‘no less than a change in the political culture of this country both nationally and locally:for people to think of themselves as active citizens, willing, able and equipped to have aninfluence in public life and with the critical capacities to weigh evidence before speakingand acting; to build on and to extend radically to young people the best in existingtraditions of community involvement and public service, and to make them individuallyconfident in finding new forms of involvement and action among themselves’.202

Civic education in the NetherlandsIn 2003, the Dutch Education Council recommended reinforcing the position of civiceducation in the schools.203 Activities promoting citizenship that many schools arealready carrying out should be turned into an obligation and provided with a legal basisby the inclusion, in the Education Act, of a clause stipulating that ‘education is alsoaimed at the advancement of citizenship’.

The government has endorsed this recommendation for primary and secondary edu-cation.204 Moreover, it intends to broaden it by adding “social integration” as a goal ofcitizenship education.All schools will be expected to contribute to the socialization of children of different

205 Information received from Országos Közoktatási Intézet,Budapest.

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backgrounds through sports and cultural events, by visiting companies and socialinstitutions, by school linkage and exchange programs, in short by learning in differentsocial environments. City councils and schools can also take specific measures to enhancesocial integration in local situations where high-risk pupils are unevenly distributedover the schools.

In primary education and basic secondary education, “citizenship education” will be partof the new attainment targets. “Social studies” will be a compulsory subject for allstudents in the last years of secondary education. Here, structural elements of civiceducation can be addressed in a coherent historic perspective. In addition, citizenshipeducation will be examined through examination programmes in history, economy,geography, philosophy and art.

For secondary vocational education, new competencies have been proposed in whichcitizenship plays an important role. They include normative competencies, such asindependent behaviour as a citizen, socially involved and responsible, based on sociallyaccepted basic values, as well as cultural competencies, such as the ability to participatein the multiform and multicultural society at the national and at the European level,while respecting the characteristics of each other’s cultural communities.

Civic education in HungaryThe “Man and Society” cultural domain of the National Core Curriculum (NAT) servesthe goals of social inclusion and co-existence in society.205 This cultural domainincludes social sciences, ethics, narrow-based social studies (sociology) and citizenshipstudies. The modified NAT prescribes only competencies concerning these issues for years1 to 12, and does not prescribe any content. In addition, among the common values ofeducation and priorities, there are several serving this goal: self-knowledge, self-image,

knowledge of the nation and the country, communication, European identity, environmentprotection and the competencies necessary for adult life.

Social cohesion has a statuary relationship to education by Governmental DecreeNo.243/2003. (XII.17.) on issuing, introducing and applying the National CoreCurriculum. It is included in national policy documents and part of the responsibility of individual schools. The main function of NAT is to provide essential principle- andapproach-based support for public education while the content autonomy of schools isguaranteed. It prescribes the nationally valid general objectives of public education, themain cultural domains, the content phasing of public education and the development tasksin each phase. The schools prepare their own educational programmes and curriculaby identifying the content, for which the framework curricula – issued as recommen-dation only – can be of help.

The national programme conveys in a conscious way the complexity of skills, attitudes,personality features and knowledge necessary for socialization. The main objective is toenhance the social inclusion of students and the shaping of their personalities. A furthermain objective is to develop students’ skills by showing various patterns and situationsof their social environment so that they can find their way in unfamiliar situations andbehave according to general human and civic norms by knowing various alternativesand being in possession of appropriate forms of action. An additional important objectiveis to develop students’ knowledge of society, their skills in becoming informed and tosubstantiate their conscious participation in democratic public life; to prepare studentsfor understanding economic phenomena and for consciously taking up economic roles.

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presenting a tour d'horizon of the issuesrelated to learning to live together domi-nating the work floor.

The participants at the meeting discusseda variety of problems and solutions. Themajor issues have been clustered in sixstrands, each of which is reported on below.

4.1 Objectives

4.1.1 Intended outcomesAt the outset it was understood that theterm “learning to live together” covered abroad range of goals subsumed in variousschools under such terms as citizenshipeducation, civic education, interculturaleducation, moral education, social learningand personal and social-emotional effec-tiveness. Most of the schools developedprojects on and around the teaching ofcivics and citizenship. In Estonia, forexample, a project called “Citizen” wasimplemented in civics teaching.

In many schools, the terms civics edu-cation or citizenship education were

used to indicate the goals of learning tolive together. Some participants made adistinction between these terms; civicswas said to refer to a relatively narrowset of goals, which is largely content ledand knowledge based; individuals aretaught to know and use their civil rights.Citizenship education, on the other hand,was said to pursue broader goals. It wassaid to include the contents and know-ledge components of civics but also toencompass practical participatoryapproaches aiming to include and involvegroups in society. In this chapter the termscivics, civic education and citizenshipeducation will be used indiscriminatelyas varieties of learning to live together.

There was little disagreement on thegeneral intended outcomes of learning tolive together. All participants includedthe classic sets of shared European goalsand values, such as democracy and democratic participation, pluralism,tolerance with respect to diversity,peaceful co-existence and especiallyhuman rights, as laid down in both UN

and European instruments. Some partici-pants remarked that it is simpler tospecify the rights of citizens than theirobligations and responsibilities.

Some schools used both civics and citizen-ship education to cover a broad range ofobjectives that included employability,health skills (“eating habits” or drugprevention) and practical life skills (“howto pay a bill”). During the meeting theseobjectives were acknowledged to contri-bute to social cohesion but in an indirect

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In the preceding chapter it was observedthat learning to live together is, in someform or another, on the agenda of allEuropean educational authorities. Mostcountries have legislation on citizenshipeducation and its goals but few have laiddown a prescribed course of action. Inmany countries there is a gap betweenpolicy intentions and effective practice.

It was also found that citizenship edu-cation policies are not always evidence-based, whereas evidence on the outcomesof citizenship education is scarce.

IntroductionLearning to live together is not solely amatter of government concern. On thecontrary, in many parts of Europe itsurgency is sensed most of all at thegrass-roots level; within schools and thelocal communities. Whether or notsupported or facilitated by the educationalauthorities, numerous initiatives andactivities aiming to promote citizenshipand social cohesion have arisen inresponse to local needs. Several of these

initiatives have been described in casestudies, both from a national and a cross-national perspective.206

In June 2003, the Netherlands NationalCommission for UNESCO and the “DutchEducation Council” organized an expertmeeting on good practice in “learning to livetogether”. At this meeting, representativesof schools that distinguish themselves fortheir activities in this field exchangedexperiences and jointly defined a list offocal points to be taken into account whenassuring the viability, sustainability andeffectiveness of initiatives and activitiespromoting learning to live together.207

In May 2004, the Netherlands NationalCommission for UNESCO and the EuropeanPlatform for Dutch Education jointlyorganized a similar meeting unitingexperts from fourteen countries of theEuropean Union,208 in preparation for boththe Dutch presidency of the EuropeanUnion and the European Year of Educationfor Democratic Citizenship. Most of theexperts taking part had been designated by

their National Commissions for UNESCO.209

At the meeting, which lasted two days,each expert presented portraits of one ortwo schools that were considered toperform particularly well in their countryas far as learning to live together isconcerned. The portraits covered bothprimary and secondary schools. As in theearlier national meeting, participantsidentified and discussed the crucialfactors determining the success andfailure of initiatives, practices andactivities from the school perspective.

As the participants at the meeting them-selves played a key role in the activitiesthey described in the portraits – as aheadmaster, a teacher or as an evaluatormonitoring the activities – their discussionsprovided a considerable first-hand insightinto the mechanisms determining theviability of activities promoting learningto live together at the school level. Theschool portraits and a complete report ofthe meeting are available210, but some ofthe more salient issues, discussions andconclusions are reported on in this chapter,

4 The school perspective

206 E.g. Manual 2003; Carey & Forester 1999; Council ofEurope b.

207 Nationale Unesco-Commissie 2003.208 The fourteen countries are: Austria, Denmark, Estonia,

Finland, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Poland, Portugal and Sweden.

209 The United Kingdom does not have a National Commission.210 Netherlands National Commission 2004.

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Unlike the other learning goals, practi-tioners paid little attention to this subjectat the meeting. This is remarkable as thepoint crops up regularly in discussions oneducational policies.

There are several aspects to this issue,starting with the discussion on nationalcitizenship as opposed to commoncitizenship. In the philosophical andsociological literature, views on therelationship between these concepts ofcitizenship vary considerably. Someregard national adherence as an essentialcomponent of citizenship, indispensablefor furthering social cohesion.211 Othersmaintain that national citizenship bydefinition excludes possible non-nationalmembers of a society from citizenship,providing a basis for possible exclusion, ajustification for denying rights to certainmembers of a society.212 Others againpoint out that this is not a necessaryconsequence.213 The national citizenshipsof the member states of the EuropeanUnion encompass all rights and valuesthat pertain to common citizenship. Ifthis were not the case, they could not bemembers of the European Union.National citizenship should thereforecomplement common citizenship byadding rights and values rather thanimpose limitations on the rights andvalues governing common citizenship.214

Having said this, we can turn to thequestions of whether and how furtheringnational cultural identities in educationalpractice contributes to social cohesion. It appears that in most school portraits,patriotism serves not so much as anautonomous learning goal but rather as

a pedagogical tool, which is used tobuttress, on the affective level, theacquisition of the democratic valuesshared by all European nations.

Participants gave no reasons to doubt the efficacy of promoting national andcultural symbols as pedagogical tools in furthering citizenship and socialcohesion. However, the question whetherit works equally well in all situations wasleft open. In educational situationswhere different identities co-exist locally,patriotism may become an ambiguousconcept and may perhaps be less effectivefrom a pedagogical viewpoint. At any rate,the Convention on the Rights of the Childgives guidance as to how to deal with localcultural diversity by putting a child's owncultural identity and values on a par withthe national values.215

A final point raised in this context wasthat schools should “cast” patriotism in aEuropean or even global role; they shoulddevelop the necessary didactics to equipthe students, at an appropriate stage inthe learning process, with the insight thatvarious European patriotisms may serveto defend the same democratic substance.

4.2 The learning processThe abilities identified above includecompetencies pertaining to knowledge,to behaviour or skills, and to emotionaldisposition or socio-emotional skills. Thesethree types of competencies correspondto the three learning ambitions that canbe set for learning to live together.

Learning about living togetherStudents are provided with sufficient

knowledge and understanding of, forexample, national and internationalhistory and the structures and processesof government and political life.

Learning through living togetherStudents learn by doing, through active,participative experiences in the school orlocal community and beyond.

Learning for living togetherStudents are equipped with tools – notjust knowledge and aptitudes, but alsovalues and dispositions – that enablethem to participate actively and sensiblyin the roles and responsibilities they en-counter throughout their lives as citizensand to derive pleasure and satisfactionfrom doing so.

Participants agreed that all three edu-cational ambitions are important. Whetherone or the other receives more attentionwas said to depend on the circumstances,especially the age of the learner. Mostparticipants insisted that while theimportance of a considerable knowledgecomponent remains uncontested,

211 Habermas 1994: 22.212 Rawls 1993: 167.213 Kymlicka 1988: 167-168.214 See Gaber forthcoming for an illuminating discussion on

this point.215 Convention on the Rights of the Child, article 29(c):

“States Parties agree that the education of the child shallbe directed to [...] the development of respect for thechild’s parents, his or her own cultural identity, languageand values, for the national values of the country in whichthe child is living, the country from which he or she mayoriginate, and for civilizations different from his or her own.”

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way; discussions focused on the coreaspects of citizenship education, assumedto contribute directly to learning to livetogether.

4.1.2 Learning goalsAlthough participants diverged to a certainextent on formulating the expected out-comes of learning to live together, theyreadily and fully agreed, with one possibleexception, on the specific learning goalsthat children should attain when learningto live together.

This is an important finding. It impliesthat regardless of any divergence as todefining values and objectives on thepolicy level, educational practitionersfrom all over Europe, confronted with theconcrete needs confronting schools andcommunities, concur in identifying theknowledge, behaviour and attitudes theythink pupils and students should developin response to those needs.

These abilities or competencies includethe following.

Handling diversityUnderstanding and appreciating “other-ness” was generally considered to be oneof the primary goals of learning to live to-gether. Pupils and students should learnto understand and appreciate physical(disabilities) and racial differences as wellas differences between value systems ofdifferent religious and ethnic origins.

ToleranceIt follows that pupils should also learn tobe tolerant, i.e., respect differenceswithout being indifferent to them. They

should learn to integrate respect for theviews, behaviour, values and privacy ofothers on the one hand, and a propensityto react against antisocial behaviour onthe other.

Having and handling opinionsPupils should learn to substantiate theiropinions as well as to shape and expressthem, to exchange opinions with others,to be prepared to question both their ownopinions and those of others, to be awareof the boundaries for democratic positionsand to be able to act on the basis of theiropinions in their interaction with politicalinstitutions and other activities in whichthey carry a responsibility for their fellow-citizens.

Critical attitude and toolsIt follows that pupils must be trained tomaintain and apply a critical attitude whenproviding or being provided with informationin their interaction with their peers, themedia and especially the Internet. They should also be equipped with thenecessary intellectual tools to do so.

Conflict resolutionPupils should learn to resolve conflict inpeaceful ways, in micro-contexts such asthe family as well as in public life. Theyshould be equipped to do so by developingconfidence and empathy in relation toother individuals.

Commitment to the human environmentIt follows that children should not just besatisfied with the skills to handle incidentalconflicts but also develop a proactiveattitude needed to prevent conflicts.They should develop solidarity with and

responsibility for the people in theirenvironment, starting with the concretemembers of their family and graduallybroadening the circle to include solidarityand responsibility for the more abstractbonds that enable us to live together, suchas the nation, Europe and humanity as awhole. Commitment implies the develop-ment of the emotional disposition to co-operate and to volunteer and participatein civic activities.

Community participationPupils should also be equipped with theskills that enable them to act in accordancewith their affection for their humanenvironment. They should be equippedwith the skills and knowledge that enablethem to co-operate and to play an activerole in helping to solve the problemsaffecting the local or the wider community.

Democratic participationFinally, pupils should be equipped withthe knowledge that enables them to fulfilthe responsible citizen's role in democraticdecision making and in supporting thedemocratic institutions that enable us tolive together – including the Europeaninstitutions – and in ensuring their properuse as defined in global and Europeanhuman rights instruments.

Note on identitySeveral school portraits included affec-tion for the national culture and for suchnational symbols as the flag and thenational anthem in the learning goals ofcitizenship education. National identityand patriotism were viewed as importantelements of citizenship contributing tosocial cohesion.

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hungary• the alternatív közgazdasági gimnázium, a secondary school

in budapest, was founded in 1988 by teachers and educatorsto provide an alternative to the traditional teachingmethods practised under the socialist regime.

• the basic educational principles of the school emphasisedthat the school takes responsibility for socialising itsstudents and preparing them for the community.

• the proportion of free decisions made by students depends ontheir age. at the upper-intermediate level students begin totake on additional rights and responsibilities as free citizens ofthe school: sovereignty, the right to enter into agreements,a role in the community and participation in its affairs.

• the school is composed of small-scale communal entities,called “micro-schools”, that allow teachers to maintain anongoing personal relationship with their students. thisfacilitates the development of values and norms conduciveto cooperative relationships.

project (example from Malta) or theorganization of a programme for theItalian and Bulgarian partner schools inthe framework of a Comenius project(Aurélia de Sousa school in Porto,Portugal). Most of the representedschools regularly organize project weeks.In Denmark, classes from primary schoolsin the city go out to the countryside andvice versa to find out how people live andwork there. These are not just outingsbut involve a great deal of preparationand follow-up so as to warrant learningoutcomes. In Denmark, even a specialtraining environment, called Youth Town(Ungdomsbyet), has been constructed,where pupils are enabled to gainexperience in safe but realistic simu-lations of various situations in society.

Several participants considered that anexclusively cross-curricular and extra-curricular approach to CitizenshipEducation, although deemed valuable, isnot always sufficient to raise fully-fledged citizens. In the complex societyof the future, which is reflected in theincreasing complexity of its institutions,citizenship cannot be fulfilled without aconsiderable knowledge component.

4.2.1.4 Hidden curriculumParticipants emphasized that the effective-ness of learning to live together hingesnot just on the subjects taught and theevents organized. The socializing impactof the schooling experience (i.e., theformation of values, attitudes, perceptionsof self and the other) includes muchmore than what is visible through officialexplicit curricula. It is also effectuatedthrough the implicit or “hidden” curriculum,

viz. in the way in which teachers andstudents interact in the classroom. Someschools have drawn up codes of conductgoverning such behaviour, both forstudents and teachers. However,participants indicated two basic rules for the hidden curriculum.• Learning by doing: living together is

pre-eminently learnt together;• Live what you teach: teachers should

practise the behaviour they want theirpupils to develop.

School ethosSeveral participants employed the term“school ethos” to indicate a set of valuesto be incorporated into school life thatshould permeate all activities undertakenin the school. These values should not belimited to rhetoric. As one participantpointed out, ‘it is not so important whatthey teach. It is more important that theschool culture fits to what they teach. Thenthey see it in action. They copy it.’ As thisrequires consistent behaviour on the partof all teachers, a whole-school approachto combating bullying and other forms ofnon-civic behaviour should be developed.

This is particularly important where uncivicbehaviour does not just affect the civicdevelopment of the pupils but evenjeopardizes the efficacy of the school as awhole, as in the case of student violence.Participants emphasized that both demon-strating and imposing consistent civicbehaviour in the classroom and ensuringa safe learning environment imposesfirm requirements on teachers' skills.

Handling differencesThere was some discussion on how to deal

with racial, social, cultural, religious orlinguistic differences in the classroom.Some feared that, if such differencesare explicitly acknowledged, they may be emphasized and even exacerbated.Denying or ignoring them, however,makes it hard to deal with them, let alonecontrol them. After a discussion, it wasgenerally felt that children should betaught to handle the differences theyperceived. School should thereforeactively tackle any perceived differencesin the classroom with concrete, purpose-ful actions. This requires, it was againstressed, highly qualified teachers.

More generally, it was concluded, imposingand sustaining a hidden curriculum that isconducive to the development of citizen-ship competencies imposes considerabledemands on teacher qualifications.

4.2.1.5 The school as a learningcommunityMost participants considered that learningto live together should not only determinethe micro-behaviour in the classroom but also characterize the school as an

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learning to live together should not berestricted to learning about living together.As one participant remarked, ‘knowing howto behave is not the same as behaving’.All insisted on more investment in active,participatory settings in which pupilscould learn by doing. Social-emotionaldevelopment would be enhanced byengaging pupils in authentic problems inthe social environment.

4.2.1 MethodsThe way in which learning to live togetheris embedded in the school curriculumvaries considerably among the schoolsrepresented at the meeting.

4.2.1.1 Learning to live together as asubject in the curriculumIn some schools, citizenship educationhas been introduced as a discrete area ofenquiry into the curricula of compulsoryeducation. The Estonian schools providedthe clearest examples. Citizenship Edu-cation is part of the curriculum throughouta pupil’s school career, focusing initially ondeveloping an individual’s self-knowledgeand awareness, with particular emphasison communication and goal setting. It thenprogresses to a wider exploration of theindividual’s relation to society and to thelocal, national and global environment,focusing on the development of civiccompetencies and cultural and environ-mental awareness. This is an iterativeprocess that involves working on thesame phenomena or contexts at differentlevels and in new contexts according tothe age and stage of the target group.Since 2002, students take examinationsin citizenship. Exams include testingskills and attitudes as well as knowledge.

In the Polish schools, the first and secondyear of the Gymnasium have one hour of“civic education” a week. In the third yearthe students have two hours. In the Swedishsecondary school presented, the social andemotional training programme is tabledas a subject; it is taught twice a week untilthe age of 13. It deals with discussing andhandling such themes as peer pressure,problem solving, co-operation or listeningand communication.

Where citizenship education is wellanchored in the curriculum, this is usuallythe result of a national consensus,implying that the awareness of theurgency of learning to live together isalready well established at the policy level.

4.2.1.2 Learning to live together in across-curricular approachThe submitted school portraits suggestthat in many schools a cross-curricularapproach is considered most appropriatefor promoting learning to live together. Bytheir nature, the range of competenciesassociated with learning to live togetherspan several subject areas. Participantsalso considered it important that teachersof other subjects have a strong commit-ment to a cross-curricular approach to thedevelopment of Citizenship Education anddo not feel sidelined by the introductionof Citizenship Education as a discretesubject. Moreover, the cross-curricularapproach reflects a shift in emphasis fromteaching to learning. The competenciesthat are associated with learning to livetogether are suitable to be taught in aholistic, learner-centred learning culture.Finally, the cross-curricular approach isrequired to substantiate the learning

community paradigm, which will bediscussed below.

Since experience with a cross-curricularapproach is limited and since cross-curricular teaching is not so easy to codifyin rules, guidelines and textbooks and since,as we shall see, the contents of learningto live together should be geared to localneeds, there are not always definiteguidelines on how to fit learning to livetogether into the curriculum or in theteaching process. Schools develop theirown ideas and methods. This works wellif schools and local authorities havesufficient autonomy in this respect.

Finland, for example, has a broad nationalframework curriculum while the munici-palities have responsibility for the actualcurriculum. In Helsinki there is a school-based curriculum system, which is adaptedto the needs of the students in each school.This has enabled schools like RoihuvuoriPrimary to introduce citizenship edu-cation throughout the curriculum in aninteractive approach involving theteachers and the local stakeholders.

4.2.1.3 Learning to live together in anextra-curricular approachIt turns out that learning to live togetheris very amenable to an extra-curricularapproach. Most participants stressedthat learning to live together is very muchlearning by doing. ‘Action is the key tocitizenship.’ Many of the representedschools are very active in organizingactivities. They may be organized insideor by the school, such as simulating a lawcourt (example from the Polish partici-pant), setting up an animal awareness

structive approaches to conflict resolution.It should promote peaceful means ofsolving problems through a structureddialogue among pupils themselves butalso between pupils and teachers. Thepresented schools abounded with ideasfor peer group mediation and arbitration.The Dutch secondary school G.K. vanHogendorp Scholengemeenschap intro-duced the following method to solveconflicts. All classmates choose fromtheir class a mediator for solvingconflicts among other students. Thisparticular student, who follows a conflictmediation course, will solve conflictsunder the supervision of a co-ordinator.The school chose this way of handlingconflicts to increase the students' senseof responsibility. The experience hasshown that student mediation works well.

The Swedish “Storvretskolan” also providesan interesting addition to these instrumentsby approaching the problem not only fromthe procedural but also from the social-emotional perspective. Students are trainednot just to apply peaceful procedures tohandle conflicts, but also to identify andmaster their psychological implications.

ScaleThere was some debate on the organiza-tional implications of fitting up the schoolas a co-operative learning community. If theschool organization is not just an organiza-tion that takes care of the delivery of edu-cation but is also a learning organization,where participation in the organizationitself is expected to yield essentiallearning effects, it follows that the schoolshould be organized in such a way as tofacilitate and maximize these effects.

One of the issues arising here is therelationship between the size of theorganization and social cohesion. Someparticipants highlighted the advantagesof large schools, which offer a broadvariety of possibilities and a diversity ofthe school population. ‘Society itself isalso large scale.’ Others insisted thatlearning to live together is a subtleprocess, which requires a small-scaleenvironment where pupils and studentscan build up experience by trial and errorin a safe environment that is not yet quitelike society. In this light the way in whichthe Alternatív Közgazdasági Gimnáziumin Budapest handled the scale problemattracted a great deal of interest.

The school portrait of the AlternatívKözgazdasági Gimnázium shows anoperating structure of so-called micro-schools. Each separate grade within theschool consists of approximately 50–60students and a faculty of six educators(usually responsible for teaching theirown specialized area of study), whoremain as one unit for the entireduration of the 6-year training course.The structure of micro-schools operatingwithin this school appears to help toprepare the individuals for communitylife and contribute considerably to thedevelopment of social cohesion andactive citizenship. Each micro-schoolforms a community with its own rules,work schedule and daily activities inaccordance with the order of operationof the school. It is also the responsibility ofthe micro-school to furnish, clean andmaintain its workspace, in which studentshave responsible roles. In the micro-schools students experience throughout

their school careers that they are importantand make up an integral part of a closecommunity. Micro-schools have the rightto initiate independent projects and specialprograms, in addition to establishing theirown traditions.

This does not imply that micro-schoolsare in fact independent schools.Discovering the need for co-operationwith other micro-schools to reachcertain objectives may in fact be aninteresting learning effect of the micro-school structure and could be facilitatedby the school at large.

4.3 The environment of the schoolPolicy makers sometimes tend to forgetthat the influence of the school on theknowledge, skills, behaviour andattitudes of a child is limited. Three other environments may be at least asimportant as the school in shaping anindividual's character; the family, thecommunity outside the school, and themedia. The influence exerted by theseenvironments does not necessarilyreinforce the goals pursued by the

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organization. They view the school as amicro-society, a social environmentwhose internal norms and values set theparameters for future behaviour in societyat large. Learning to live together musttherefore aim to activate the whole schoolcommunity to guarantee a school environ-ment where students feel comfortableand enjoy security. The process oflearning in formal education is then acombination of the way in which the officialprescribed curriculum is imparted in theclassroom and the overall socializingexperience of the school as a social institu-tion. This imposes several requirementson the school as an organization.

School democracyParticipants agreed that if the school is torepresent a democratic environment, itsorganization should also be democratic.Both teachers and students should there-fore be involved in making decisions.Most of the schools represented at themeeting have democratic organs in whichstudents and teachers are represented.In the UNESCO General Secondary Schoolof Bürs, Austria, students learn democracyby electing class representatives. Thisgives pupils an opportunity to expresstheir wishes not only at the classroomlevel but also at the school level. Electedparticipants are trained by their teachersand a website is provided for furtherexchange of views. In some schools, suchdemocratic organs (student councils,student parliaments) have a substantialinfluence on school life and schoolpolicies and even decision-making power.Participants warned that any democraticorgans thus established should be takenvery seriously. ‘Participation is not

possible without power that can beexercised.’ Deceiving students withdemocratic organs whose influence orpower looks considerable on paper but isnegligible in practice was said to beharmful for the development of pupils'democratic attitudes.

This approach was applied mostconsistently in the portrayed schoolsfrom Finland. They participate in theVoice of the Young campaign, which aimsto help children and young people togrow into active members of society.‘This means establishing operatingmodels and practices in the communitieswhere children and young people live,allowing them a voice in adult socialdecision making.’ Roihuvuori Primary isenthusiastic about its participation.

‘The campaign gives our school and pupilsthe benefit of making real difference.They have the possibility to develop theirideas to suggestions, campaign for themin school and finally, with good arguments,win the money to make the ideas cometrue. All the work is done by pupils,teachers only helping the youngest withreading and writing and giving goodadvice if asked. To our adults' surprise, in this year's election the pupil councilpresident turned out to be a seven-year-old Finnish Italian first grader and heneeded someone to read the meetingagendas for the first half year. TheHelsinki city school department also had some difficulties accepting thedemocratic decision of our pupils, so ourpupil council had to send our 12-year-oldsecretary to represent us in the citymeetings instead of the president.’

This approach is continued in secondaryeducation.

‘Each school class sets up their own FutureWorkshop, where students discuss problemsand ideas related to the school environmentand vote on them. Finally, each classselects its own proposal and presents it tothe new “student board”. The new studentboard has 1–2 representatives from eachclass. These representatives are “nego-tiators”, representing the views of theirclass at board meetings. The board discus-ses any proposals made by the classes,sets up working groups to furtherdevelop the projects and finally, selectsthe school project to be presented at ageneral Voice of the Young meetingchaired by the Lord Mayor at City Hall.The Helsinki Education Department’sunit for real estate earmarked EUR420,000 in its 2004 budget for carryingout suggestions made by children.’

As some participants pointed out, teachersalso need to be enabled to co-operate andparticipate in decision making at the schoollevel. They may be expected to evaluatetheir working methods with others and toagree on common areas to be developedfurther. Teachers may be expected toreflect on the effects of their behaviouron students. In one instance, studentswere systematically involved in assessingteaching performance.

Handling conflictsAs the ability to manage friction andconflicts is a crucial expected outcome of learning to live together, participantsagreed that the school, as a learningcommunity, should provide exemplary con-

cognitive results rather than citizenshipcompetencies. These attitudes result inindifference as to the contribution of theschool to social cohesion.

Low parents' trustOn the other side there are parents fromminorities and migrant communities who sometimes experience school as amainstream institution in which theyhave no stake, whose advantages theyare not aware of and whose values theydo not know or endorse. This results in a reluctance to become involved in theschool or even in the educational careersof their children.

Both low interest and low trust hinderparents' involvement in school life. Someschools pursue an active approach in com-bating these attitudes. The Storvretskolanemploys three strategies to reach theparents.• Early intervention, through concerted

action on the part of all local socialservices including the health servicesand the police. These services draw upa special needs plan for the pupil,jointly with the parents.

• Use of the existing social networks toreach the parents, such as theirreligious communities.

• Recruiting mediators from thecommunities themselves.

Needless to say, teachers need to developthe complex competencies that areneeded to involve parents in theirchildren’s learning processes.

4.3.2 Interaction with the communityThere was a great deal of discussion on

the question of how schools shouldinteract with their external environments– the neighbourhood, the community,society at large – to maximize theircontribution to social cohesion.

One participant pointed out that the in-fluence of the school on social cohesion ismarginal but changes in social cohesionsurface most visibly in schools. ‘When itrains in society, it pours in the schools.’219

If this is granted, we have the option toview the school's environment as animpediment for the salutary civic workbeing done inside it. The world outsideshould be kept at a distance until theschool's work is finished. School, as acohesive learning micro-community,functions as a safe haven, where children,like delicate plants, can develop citizen-ship competencies in controlled conditionsuntil they are strong enough to survive inthe real world.

In this context citizenship education wassaid to be an effective instrument forschools to address the challenges presen-ted by their particular contexts. Citizenshipeducation can be expected to offer aframework for dealing with disciplinaryproblems and for fostering civic conductand social cohesion amongst the students,as well as for combating dropout.

However, the participants agreed thatthe efficacy of this approach stops at theage when children become conscious of acultural gap between the school environ-ment and the world outside. From that pointon, they said, the world outside should beincluded in the learning process oflearning to live together rather than be

kept at a distance. Most participants atthe meeting viewed the local communityas an appropriate learning environmentrather than an obstacle to learning. Schoolshould be a home base for students toexplore society and its institutions,rather than shielding them against them.Education should equip children withmoral backbones rather than armatures.

Exploring the communityThe represented schools thereforepresented impressive lists of projectsand practices that were set in theimmediate environment of the school,using such terms as service learning,social action projects, community workand achievement work, where studentsare confronted with authentic needs andproblems in society and learn by doingthrough co-operation in alleviating theseneeds. Such activities are generally con-sidered to be at the heart of the school'scivic mission. In order to facilitate theidentification of emerging social problemsaffecting particular target groups, theschools have set up networks andpartnerships with other actors involved

216 OECD 1999: 36; Lindsey 1998: 97-101.217 A Chicago longitudinal study found a 33 percent difference

in the rate of juvenile arrest that could be related to theapplication of a specific early child developmentprogramme. Cf. Reynolds et al. 2001.

218 For example, at the age of three Catholic children inNorthern Ireland are twice as likely to state that they did not like the police compared to Protestant children. The different attitudes increased especially between ages 3 and 6. Cf. Connolly et al. 2004.

219 Schuyt 2001: 22.

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schools. On the contrary, shortfalls ofsocial cohesion are often attributed tothe existence of rifts between the schoolenvironment and the other shapingenvironments in a society.

There are different ways for schools tocope with concurrent environments. Onthe one hand, they may adopt the tabularasa stance, ignore the other environmentsand undo their effects by creating strongand self-sufficient learning environments.On the other hand, they may try toestablish synergies. All participants atthe meeting had a preference for thelatter strategy. The family, society andthe media were viewed, not as problemsor risks but as potentially rich additionallearning environments that should bebent so as to enhance their impacts.

4.3.1 Involving the parentsFamily educationLearning starts at birth, when childrenare totally dependent on their parents.Brain research suggests that learningexperiences in the very early years affecta child's future capacity to participate inlife and learning. It is in the very first yearsof emotional and neural development thatchildren's norm parameters are set.216

Some early childhood programmes areclaimed to have a measurable long-termimpact on the future civic behaviour ofchildren.217 On the other hand, as oneparticipant pointed out, even very youngchildren are susceptible to developingintolerance. In Northern Ireland it wasfound, for example, that the appreciationof identity symbols (flags) and certainpublic institutions (the police) had startedto diverge between Protestant and

Catholic children at the age of three,while differences were already firmlyestablished at the age of six.218

For this reason, some participantsconsidered it of utmost importance tostart learning to live together as early aspossible. In Storvretskolan in Stockholmcivic education starts at the age of two,using an affective approach called socialand emotional training.

The existence of a trust relationshipbetween the parents and the school is acondition for effective early learning.According to some, this implies thatschools should assist the parents infulfilling their education tasks when theneed arises. The teachers of Storvretskolanvisit parents at home and provide guidance,thus ensuring their full support for theirchildren’s learning. Schools are expectedto co-operate closely with other socialservices in order to build up and maintainsuch trust relationships.

The same is true, however, when childrenare older. Participants agreed that ifparents are more involved in the schools,children do better. At the meeting, it was generally acknowledged that closeinvolvement in the activities of the schoolon the part of the parents considerablycontributes to rallying support for theschool ethos. Parents were thereforeconsidered to be important. They shouldenjoy the full respect of the school and betreated as equal partners in the educationenterprise.

Parents' involvement in school life shouldstart at the very beginning. In Roihuvuori

Primary, values are discussed every yearwith new parents. The Siauliai Didzdvarisgymnasium in Lithuania organizes “parents’classes” twice a year. In most schools thereare parents' councils. Several participantsreported that transparency to the parentsis essential. Parents should be entitled toinformation on the school's functioningand have the right of access to the school.

In Storvretskolan, parents are involved inschool governance. They sit on theschool board and assist in drawing up theschool plan. It turns out that parents,thus empowered, develop ownership forthe environment in which their childrenare educated. They organize activities forthe class. In short, there is a considerablesynergy between the school and the family.

Reaching the parentsAlthough all participants agreed on theimportance of close partnerships withparents, several participants pointed outthat it is not always easy to commitparents to an active role. Two types ofnon-commitment can be distinguished.The first tendency is low interest in schoolsand the second is low trust in schools.

Low parents' interestSome parents expect too much from theschool. In the transition countries thegovernment used to take care of the com-plete education of the children, includingvalues. Many parents think that this is stillthe case. Many parents in Western Europeas well tend to view education as a servicethat can be ordered from the school butdoes not require any particular involvementin the school as a community. They tend to be interested in their children's

establish trust relationships amongcommunities. The Internet also fulfils acrucial role in linking school networksacross international borders, as in theAssociated Schools Programme, in whichseveral of the schools represented at themeeting participate.

Other participants focused on non-intendedside effects of the use of ICT affectingsocial cohesion. Some ascribed thepenetration of non-democratic valuesand discourse into the classroom – suchas discriminatory language and claimingthe right to express one's opinions withoutfeeling the need to question and sub-stantiate them – to the impact of virtualcommunication culture. Since parents areoften hardly in a position to contribute tovirtual citizenship as a result of the digitaldivide separating the generations, parti-cipants considered it a substantial challengeto teach not just the technical abilities ofmodern communication but also how to dealwith issues of trust and responsibility invirtual social intercourse.

Here too, several schools insisted on therole of the hidden curriculum in esta-blishing virtual citizenship. Values andcodes should not be specified on a list butbe emphasized in action. The school, as a co-operative learning community,should take a leading role and provideguidance to students' activities on theInternet. One participant pointed out that,

‘If you wish to develop media awareness, ifyou want your students to learn to ques-tion and filter information, to separateinformation from opinions, to refrainfrom undemocratic discourse, to assess

the impact of the language and imagesthey use in communicating on theInternet, you should encourage and guidethem to produce school newspapers, run websites, and organize and moderatevirtual discussions.’

Finally, participants discussed the use of ICT to link up schools and parents.Parents are informed about school lifeand enabled to take part in it. TheInternet was also used to bridge thecontrol gap between the school and thefamily, e.g., in discouraging truancy. Therewas some hesitation on the question ofhow far one should go in applying thisinstrument. Some participants felt thatsuch an approach, if applied systematically,might crush children's intrinsic motivationfor participating in school life. Here is anarea, they said, where children should beleft some discretion so as to develop asense of autonomy and responsibility.

4.4 ResourcesIt is obvious that in order to prepare theirpupils and students for learning together,schools should be properly equipped andfacilitated to do so. They must rely onresources of various kinds. At the meetingthree resources were discussed; instruc-tional devices, the teaching staff and theschool as an organization.

4.4.1 Instructional devicesParticipants paid relatively little attentionto the instructional devices they neededfor learning to live together. Some schoolsdevelop their own materials and syllabi.Teachers are often free to choose thematerial they think fit to use. This reflectsthe fact that civic education is in many

places still in an exploratory phase; thereis not yet a common body of uncontestedknowledge on the methodology of citizen-ship teaching. A few schools in Central Europe, however,referred with enthusiasm to government-or privately-sponsored NGOs providingboth material and training and assistancein using it.

4.4.2 Teaching staffOn various occasions, participants under-lined the crucial role of the teachers indeveloping learning to live together.

Teachers' competenciesAs some participants pointed out, thegenerally felt need to use unorthodoxlearning strategies entails a revision ofthe competencies that are required ofteachers. Thus, in order to promote theinstilment of civic competencies throughcross- and extra-curricular activities,teachers should be able to manage groupdynamics among pupils who come from avariety of backgrounds with differentlearning needs. Teachers should also becapable of involving parents in their

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in education and training, as well as localauthorities and social services, culturalassociations, NGOs and companies. TheSir Arturo Mercieca Primary School inMalta, for example, participates in thecultural life of the local community. The school is also involved in organiza-tions that aim to safeguard the naturalenvironment. The school is especiallyinvolved in bird life and nature.

Exploring the institutionsConsidering that the overarching aim ofCitizenship Education is to develop par-ticipants' understanding of living andworking in a democracy, several schoolsalso actively encourage their students toparticipate in the work of the institutionsof the surrounding community. In orderto facilitate such activities, the schoolsengage in partnerships with those insti-tutions. The Voice of the Young in Helsinkioffers an illustration of this approach.Besides introducing far-reaching studentparticipation in school governance, thecampaign also enables their participationin decision making for regional youth workand the city as a whole, e.g., by creatinga formal setting (the Open Forum) whereolder pupils at upper comprehensiveschools discuss social issues with peergroups and decision makers. Here theyget acquainted with Helsinki City officialsand council members doing their work,thus increasing their affinity with demo-cratic ways of solving collective issues.

Participants discussed the conditionsthat would enable schools to be moreresponsive to the communities theyserve, facilitate schools and engage theirpupils in learning processes set in the

community. They agreed that schoolsshould be empowered to plan and adaptcurricular frameworks and be providedwith resources in the form of staff develop-ment and incentives for local co-operation.

4.3.3 Handling the virtualneighbourhoodIn addition to the family and the localcommunity, there is a third environmentthat shapes a student's future socialbehaviour and cannot be controlled bythe school. As a result of the develop-ment of communication technology,individuals have become part of aninfinite number of virtual communitiesbesides the physical ones. This adds anew dimension to citizenship.

When discussing how to deal with the virtualenvironment, one participant pointed outthat essentially, this is nothing new. Eversince schools have taught reading andwriting, it was clear that they were notjust transmitting technical abilities but alsohad to equip individuals for responsiblenavigation in the galaxy of human thought.As some participants remarked, readingand writing (as well as other symboliccompetencies such as understanding andproducing art and music) have alwaysbeen instrumental in transmitting andengendering values. It was added thatthis of course requires efforts on the partof the school in critical reading.

However, this does not alter the fact thatthe importance of the virtual world inhuman social interaction has increasedenormously both in quantity and intensityas a result of the advent of mass mediaand ICT, which have lowered – through the

substitution of image for text – the existingphysical, technical and intellectual thres-holds, creating a global space for emotionalas well as conceptual cohabitation.

Participants agreed, of course, that ICT isindispensable in schools. Virtual learningenvironments (computers, Internet simu-lations, television, etc.) have increasedthe opportunities of young people tolearn in informal and non-formal ways.

In fact, some pointed out that the schoolseems to be losing its monopoly onlearning. Students learn independentlyand from each other by exchangingsoftware and content. We can by nowturn the question around and ask notwhat the school can teach in terms of ICTskills, but how schools can facilitatestudent learning. Accessibility to ICT canbe fostered by means of non-formallearning in open learning environmentsmade available at or in association withthe school, where students can usecomputers and the Internet.

In general, it was concluded that ICT has apowerful impact on children’s behaviour.It also plays a role in self-identification.The new media offer so many possibili-ties that they increase both uniformity –engendering a kind of global commonculture – and diversity, as everyone canselect and choose out of an infinite amountof options.

Some participants viewed this developmentas a unique opportunity for enhancingdemocracy and promoting learning to livetogether. St Joseph's College in Belfastuses the Internet to link up schools and

being a determinant for social cohesionand qualified to fulfil this role. Otherspointed out that developing such blueprintspresupposes a great deal of research to bedone on what can be taught at all, whetherit be to teachers or to students. Therewas general agreement on the need toinvest in teacher training, in purposefulaction-oriented research on teacherskills and in networks for setting up pilotsand exchanging experience and results.

4.4.3 School organizationSeveral participants stated that it is notalways easy to sustain the focus for citizen-ship education. It rarely happens that allteachers are simultaneously convinced ofits importance. More often than notcitizenship education is perceived as anadditional task, on top of the existing ones,which is easily given up when teachers orstudents are short of time or energy.

Participants at the meeting observedthat civic education is too often regardedas a marginal activity, remote from aschool's core business. They all looked atthe school management team as the keyfactor in keeping learning to live togetheralive. What should headmasters orschool principals do?

Planning for learning to live togetherSome participants pointed out that in theprimary process of a teaching organization,implicit learning goals always succumbto explicit learning goals unless they arefirmly rooted in tradition. Innovationshave no chance of being implementedunless they are made visible in theobjectives of the organization, in schoolplans, timetables, staff workloads and

examinations. The presented portraits ofthe Aravete Gymnasium and the SakuGymnasium in Estonia prove that thelatter strategy works well. Civicsexaminations are popular with thestudents. ‘It is the only subject wherethey can work on their own opinions.’

A few participants pointed out that thisstrategy is not enough by itself. Turningcitizenship into ‘a subject like the others’may prevent it from engaging in educationalpractice as a cross-curricular theme.Assigning learning to live together to theovert curriculum may prevent it from beingembedded in the hidden curriculum. ‘Ifcitizenship is taught as a subject, whyshould a teacher of another subject botherto pay attention to it in his own teaching?’Several participants suggested that,insofar as a cross-curricular approach andthe hidden curriculum are considered tobe the most appropriate strategies forfurthering learning to live together,additional strategies ought to be developedthat supplement the inclusion of civiceducation in the formal curriculum.

In fact the shift of the school towardsbecoming a learning community posesconsiderable challenges to the schoolmanagement team. In learning communi-ties a large degree of discretion is allottedto the individuals that are engaged in theprimary process. This complicates the useof standard planning and control instru-ments to assess the implementation ofcitizenship teaching in day-to-day practice.

Leadership for learning to live together Participants agreed that the commitmentof the school principal (headmaster) to

learning to live together turns out to be anecessary precondition for a successfulimplementation of its introduction. Theyexpected the following factors to providesignificant leverage for citizenshipprogrammes.• Headmasters should actively promote

the development of a shared vision.• They should exude their commitment to

the implementation of any citizenshipinitiative that is being undertaken andrefrain from delegating its ownershipto a specific teacher of group of teachers.

• They should warrant ongoingsupervision of progress themselves.

• Headmasters should devote staff resour-ces to citizenship education projects.

Most importantly, the extent to which the school leaders have internalized theobjectives of civic education in their own conduct and policies determines its status in the school. The schoolmanagement team itself should actaccording to the values it wants to betransmitted to the students. It shouldactively and visibly sustain the schoolethos. Their way of dealing with

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children’s learning process and to dealwith the variety of expectations that theparents have.

Teachers should wield such competenciesirrespective of their subject specialization;in a cross-curricular approach, where thedevelopment of civic competencies is aproduct of classroom management ratherthan subject matter, teachers of biologyand teachers of history bear equal res-ponsibility for transmitting civic valuesand should be equally qualified for doing so.

Teacher commitmentSince learning to live together is a newobjective, for the pursuit of which mostof the staff have little experience whilemethods are still in an experimentalstage of development, teachers shouldmost of all be willing to improvise, eagerto take new initiatives and prepared tolearn from the acquired experience. Theultimate success of Citizenship Educationhinges on full commitment on the part ofthe teachers.

Several participants reported, however,that the proven method of “chalk 'n talk”continues to entice the teachers. As oneparticipant pointed out, ‘one of the mainproblems is that teachers don’t easilyreflect and like to talk and the classlistening, thus foregoing the opportunityto instil democratic behaviour andattitudes in the class situation’.

This problem especially imposes itself insecondary education, where ‘teachersshould no longer teach just chemistry,they must also teach future citizens’.Teachers were said to be reluctant to

redefine their roles, viewing this asdevaluating their academic qualificationsand reducing their professional autonomy.When qualifying the attitude of someteachers, some participants even talkedabout ‘resistance to teaching civic edu-cation’. This is particularly telling if it isrealized that all participants reported onschools that distinguish themselves forgood practice in civic education; theproblem may impose itself even more inan average school.

Participants mentioned two strategies toovercome this difficulty.

• Rallying the teachers' commitmentFirstly, the introduction and imple-mentation of learning to live togethershould neither be a matter of imposinga top-down decision on the teachers,nor the idiosyncratic hobbyhorse of oneor two teachers. All teachers should beinvolved in all stages of the process.More specifically, at the outset of anyinitiative teachers should be sensitizedto the concrete problems for whichlearning to live together purports toprovide an answer. All teachers shouldrealize that learning to live together isnot a fashionable new trend but anattempt to respond to urgent needs inthe immediate environment of the school.

Teachers should also be involved indevising and developing the specificresponses to these needs. They must beenabled to co-operate and participatein decision making at the school level,to evaluate their working methods withothers and to agree on common areasto be developed further. These methods

will improve the involvement ofteachers in the curriculum develop-ment process. It gives them a sense ofownership, and it is perceived to havedone a great deal to secure theircommitment to the principles andpractices of learning to live together.

• Equipping the teachersSeveral participants pointed out thatcommitment alone is not sufficient fora viable introduction of learning to livetogether. When confronted with a senseof failure, teachers are tempted torevert to the old tacks. As one participantunderlined, they must therefore realizethat they are engaging in an adventure;a necessary adventure but neverthelessan adventure, where they cannot rely onthe old benchmarks. The new methodsare tough and demanding, whileimmediate reward is not to be expectedin view of our incomplete knowledge ofwhat works. Participants expressed theneed to invest in support systems for theintroduction of citizenship education,which facilitate teachers to self-reflect,to exchange experiences, to attend in-service courses, to try out new behaviourin a controlled situation and to monitorprogress made.

Teacher trainingIt goes without saying that all participantsunderlined the importance of both initialand continuing teacher education. Oneor two participants insisted on the needto design the key competencies of boththe “effective citizen” and the “effectivecitizenship teacher” and to propose thesecompetencies to teacher training colleges.The new teacher should be aware of

the success of civic education initiativesat the school level by tracking theincidence of negative behaviour, such asbullying and incidents involving studentsand staff.

• The level of outcomes in society at largeThe meeting acknowledged that assessingthe outcomes of initiatives at the societallevel is the most difficult aspect oflearning to live together to be assessed.Yet the proof of the pudding is here.

The challenge does not consist of assessingthe impact of learning to live together onsocial cohesion. This is not a task forindividual schools. Historical precedents,such as the rise of the nation state, suggestthat the existence of a causal relationshipbetween education and social cohesion isat least plausible. Given the urgency ofpromoting social cohesion and the lack ofalternative strategies, this is a sufficientimpetus for engaging in the enterprise.However, the plausibility of the causalrelationship only presents us with a blackbox, which hardly provides guidance forassessing and evaluating specific actionsto promote social cohesion.

The task of evaluation and quality assess-ment is rather to uncover the mechanisminside the black box (or at least to dissectit into a network of smaller black boxeseach of which is more plausible than thebig one). This requires finding out whichspecific types of action by schools targetingspecific groups and individuals yieldidentifiable and measurable specificcontributions to social cohesion. At theend of the day this should enable us tocompare alternative modalities of action

and find out which ones are more effectivethan others.

As discussed in Chapter 3, however, re-search on methods and outcomes of civiceducation is still in its infancy.220 Aware ofthis, participants suggested a few indicatorsthat could inspire further research.

Thus, it was agreed that indicators mightinclude an increasing involvement on thepart of former students in social, culturaland civic activities, including voluntarywork for NGOs and of course a decreasingincidence of juvenile arrest. The partici-pant from Poland suggested interviewingformer students as an interesting methodof evaluating the social outcomes ofcitizenship education programmes.

In principle, participants suggested, theeffects of civic education should alsoemerge in increasing voting turnouts.Sometimes, such effects transpire eveninstantly; the participant from Polandreported that civic education initiativeshad had a positive impact on the votingbehaviour of the students' parents.

Other suggestions to devise short-termindicators for assessing the effectivenessof learning to live together included thedevelopment of “spontaneous” studentparticipation in community action andthe structure of their social networks, inparticular from a multicultural viewpoint.

The urgency of monitoringThe meeting agreed that, in order toenhance the impact of learning to livetogether, monitoring systems shouldurgently be developed that facilitate

schools in learning from experience,including the experience of other schoolsand other countries. On the margins ofthe present meeting, schools fromvarious Nordic and Baltic countriesspontaneously undertook the initiative to set up a monitoring network.

4.6 The dynamics of learning to livetogether initiativesParticipants converged on the reasonswhy the schools presented at the meetinghad engaged in special efforts to promotelearning to live together. They usuallyreferred to rapid changes in society,resulting in a generalized confusion aboutnorms, values, roles and attitudes amongyoung people. In addition, some schoolportraits mention particular circumstancesin the immediate environment of theschool, ranging from high levels ofunemployment to (potential) tensionbetween communities.

The origins of initiativesConsiderable divergence was found amongthe presented schools as to how theirprominence in citizenship education had

220 Onderwijsraad 2002: 152.

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conflicts, discipline and the school'senvironment determines the students'behaviour more than any subject matter.

‘Students rarely oversee any inconsistenciesbetween the propagated values and theactual practice. If the school does not stickto the democratic values it propagates,they tend to learn from practice anddecide that the values are not for them.’

In short, it was concluded, learning to livetogether is a feature of school organization.A school that does not live together itselfcannot teach learning together.

4.5 Assessing and evaluatinglearning to live togetherThe participants at the meeting realizedthat the success of learning to livetogether depends also for a great deal onthe availability of reliable information onits efficacy. They acknowledged theurgency of the development of tools forthe evaluation of their respectiveenterprises. They were weary, however,that indicators might be adopted thatfocus on measurable outcomes ratherthan relevant outcomes. However, theuse of impressionistic and “emotional”criteria for the assessment of the resultsof citizenship education should beavoided as well; any results should beevidence based. Finally, participantsmade it clear that given the state of theart, the results of assessments should beused for generating learning effects andimprovements rather than for account-ability. In the present circumstances, oneparticipant considered, imposing account-ability would discourage schools fromengaging in any experiments or pilots.

4.5.1 Key principlesThree key principles were identified uponwhich decisions about particular formsof assessment and quality control wouldtake place.

• Focus on teachingThe focus of assessment should not beon the individual child but rather onthe quality of the teaching provided. By stigmatizing groups of future citizensfor doing poorly in learning together,schools would hardly contribute tosocial cohesion. That does not precludethat the performance of individualchildren may be measured in order toassess the quality of the teaching.

• Focus on skillsThe focus of concern should be toensure that schools provide theappropriate underlying skills forchildren to participate, not justknowledge.

• Allowing for the contextIn all evaluations of civic education,the local social and cultural context,which varies between regions but alsobetween schools, should be taken intoaccount. Any quality and assessmentframework should include criteria forhandling intercultural education.

Four levels of quality assessmentOn the basis of these principles, themeeting agreed that teaching citizenshipeducation can be assessed in variousways, both directly and indirectly. Fourlevels of observation were distinguished;the students, the teachers, the schooland society at large.

• The student levelAt the student level, civics teachingcan be assessed by looking atexamination results, portfolios of civicactivities prepared by the students,and reports of social action projectscarried out as a part of civic educationprogrammes. Moreover, evidence canbe obtained by observing students'behaviour in the classroom.

• The teacher levelAt the level of the teacher, civicsteaching can be assessed throughobservation; are the principlesunderlying learning to live togetherpracticed in the classroom? Moreover,since there should be evidence of adistinctive and appropriate pedagogy in the teacher’s planning and practice,it may be expedient to examine the way teachers plan their lessons andimplement the curriculum. Thereshould also be evidence that theteachers plan to provide opportunitiesfor students to engage in action work.

• The school levelAt the school level, the evidence to beassessed may include the existence ofparticipative structures for consul-tation and decision making, as well asof policies on bullying and teacher-student interaction. The degree ofstudent participation in school life andschool-based community action canalso be examined.

Although it is not simple to assess theschool ethos – programmatic statementson paper are not a reliable indicator – itis to a certain extent possible to assess

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united kingdom• st joseph's college is a secondary school in belfast,

northern ireland. it serves a mainly catholic population

but encourages applications of students of other faith

communities and traditions.

• civic education was introduced at st joseph's in 2001. the

principal described it as part of an "ethical commitment"

to an approach of education that sought to develop the

whole personality of children.

• every other week students aged 11-14 receive a class of

"local and global citizenship". in the weeks in between the

class focuses on public achievement work that is related

to the curriculum.

4.7 The viability and sustainabilityof citizenship education in schoolsParticipants discussed the obstacles theymeet with in introducing and sustaininglearning to live together, as well as thedilemmas they face when dealing with them.The following issues were reviewed.

The ideology issueSome participants reported that civicseducation meets with opposition onaccount of its being associated withideology, propaganda and brainwashing.‘In some countries, for some parts of the population, it appears to be difficultto get across that when introducingcitizenship education we are applying asocial science approach, not a politicalapproach.’ It was concluded that wheresuch arguments are an obstacle to thesuccessful expansion of citizenshipeducation, this could only be dealt withat the political level.221

The efficacy issueMoreover, some participants said thatmany parents and politicians question themeaningfulness of civics or citizenshipeducation. An argument often heard againstit is that civilized behaviour cannot belearned from books at school but can onlybe learned in real life, if at all. As thesubstance of this argument can only becountered by explanations of a technicalnature, some participants consideredthat only a firm commitment to citizen-ship education on the part of policymakers can put an end to this discussion.

The urgency issueParticipants noted that in most schoolsthe administration, teachers and students

somehow do not think of civic educationas being at the top of the agenda.‘Everyone thinks that it is a side issue.’This is corroborated in the way in whicheducation is discussed in politics and inthe media. ‘The results of the PISAsurveys on mathematics or science giverise to national debates on the state ofeducation and new policies. As long asthere is no similar mechanism forfurthering the sense of urgency forlearning to live together, civic educationis destined to subsist on the margins.’

The pedagogical issueCitizenship education requires a newpedagogical vision and radical changes of the content and approach to teachingand learning. Participants at the meetingreported that this approach in somecases attracts the criticism that itfocuses too strongly on “soft” learning at the cost of the core mission of theschool, which is said to consist in thetransmission of knowledge. Here, partici-pants urged that the headmaster shoulddemonstrate pedagogical leadership.

The competition issueA few participants stated that the strongcompetition among schools in their countryis perceived to have an adverse effect onthe support for learning to live together.If schools must compete for students inorder to survive, while parents chooseschools on the basis of students' expectedcognitive performance, schools tend tobe reluctant to invest in the developmentof behavioural competencies that areneeded for living together at the cost ofinvesting teaching time and workload inthe core curriculum.

The ownership issueThe above discussion touches upon afundamental problem. Who “owns” achild's education, in the sense of feelingresponsible and caring about the out-comes? If a school's continuity is made todepend on parents' school choice, it isimplicitly assumed that parents are theowners of their children's education.

Although there are parents who do not actlike the owners of their child's education,whether as a result of cultural friction orfor another reason, this assumption isreasonable. Most responsible parents infact care about maximizing educationaloutcomes for their children. However, aproblem arises when a choice must be madebetween individual outcomes and collectiveoutcomes, or at least between types ofoutcomes that are perceived as such. Ithappens that, at present, the acquisitionof knowledge is generally perceived as anindividual benefit; it offers a passport tojobs. However, civic competencies, or atleast competencies that are expected tocontribute to social cohesion, are ratherviewed as public benefits.

221 Some participants brought up that, in fact, citizenshipeducation does embody a political approach: there is anunderlying ideology embracing three generations of humanrights. But, others objected, human rights are not anideology. Moreover, “they are just rights; they do notprescribe behaviour, as ideologies do”.

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come about. In some schools the introduc-tion and implementation of the initiative hadbeen a bottom-up process, in others a top-down one. In others again, players outsidethe school system had initiated the develop-ments. Here are a few success stories.

The school takes the initiativeIn one instance, civic education was one ofthe core goals of a newly-founded school(the Alternatív Közgazdasági Gimnázium inBudapest). A group of teachers had takenthe initiative to develop alternatives forthe dominant educational practices of thesocialist system that came to an end. The government allowed for setting uppilot schools to test out new ideas.Throughout the 1990s, the school hadcontinued to be a hub for educationalinnovation. The initiative received supportfrom the ministry of education, theBudapest District and private companies.

In other instances (the presented Polishschools), teachers of existing schools hadstarted the initiative in response to thesocial problems, they perceived in theneighbourhood. They sought and receivedsupport from the school management team,the self-government and particularlyfrom NGOs. The activities are developedby teachers, parents and the studentsthemselves. The contents were providedby a national centre that specializes indeveloping civic education.

In other instances (the Geschwister-Scholl-Schule in Crailsheim, Germany),the school management team initiatedlearning to live together with theteachers. It received support from theLandesregierung, NGOs and charities.

In the UNESCO General Secondary Schoolin Bürs (Austria), learning to live togetherhad been initiated when the governmentallowed for a special commitment towardsintegrating children with special needsinto a standard school. The school seizedthis opportunity to innovate. One pilotproject elicited the next one and in lessthan a decade the school developed intoa testing site for innovative educationalconcepts, which are evaluated in depthin collaboration with a university.

Thus, we see how civic education initiativesmay start from scratch by setting up newschools. However, they may also originatewithin an existing school, as a bottom-upinitiative or somewhere midway betweenthe top and the bottom.

Civil society takes the initiativeFinally, it turns out that many schoolshave engaged in learning to live togetherafter receiving requests for setting upcivic projects from players in the school'senvironment, such as local authorities,the police or the social services, that appealto schools for support in, for example,furthering reconciliation between ethnicof religious groups or assisting neigh-bourhood fathers in enhancing crimeprevention. It was also mentioned incertain countries that internationalNGOs propose schools to collaborate incivics projects. As one participantexclaimed, in some countries ‘schools are bombarded’ with such initiatives. It is up to headmasters to balance thedesires of the NGOs and the requirementsof the curriculum, to be selective and toprotect the school's core programmefrom excessive pressure on the workload.

The government takes the leadIn Estonia, learning to live together ispresently part of a top-down process. Aftera national discussion on civic educationin the early 1990s, the first pilots wereinitiated by an NGO. Later the governmenttook over responsibility and embeddedcivic education into the curriculum. Thus, the schools described in the schoolportraits distinguish themselves not somuch in their countries for doing ground-breaking work but for being excellentexamples of implementing national policies.Their projects are especially well planned;the teachers are well qualified and just alittle bit more enthusiastic than those inthe other schools.

The diffusion of experienceParticipants also discussed the questionof how the ideas and experience that aredeveloped in one school spread to otherschools. Starting out from interestingideas and testing them, how can wearrive at the conclusion that such ideasare sufficiently mature to be tested out inanother school and developed further?When are they ready for implementationin local or national education policy?

It was remarked that this is not so muchof a problem in small countries; ideasand information spread spontaneouslybecause networks overlap; each expertsits on three or four commissions andadvisory teams, so information on whatworks and what does not spreads naturallyfrom one school to the other. However, inlarger countries, and especially on theEuropean level, it was concluded thatstructures should be set up to ensure theexchange of ideas and experience.

of a learning community cannot beaccounted for by simple measurementand comparison. It can only be shown tobe plausible on the basis of assumptionson the value of the processes taking placeand the expected outcomes, assumptionsthat may shift in the course of time.

Now what happens if a school is simulta-neously expected to be an efficient andfully accountable organization fordispensing education and a learningcommunity? It is obvious that if theaccounting system is geared to orthodoxmethods of teaching and learning, alter-native forms will have trouble surviving.If a school must account for measurableoutputs against fixed targets, any effortsto approach the moving targets will beclassified as wasted.

Participants at the meeting promptedtwo possible approaches to this problem.

One participant proposed to developsophisticated quality assurance systems,which would cover the quality of communitylearning as well as “academic” learning.A school involved in civic educationinitiatives, he suggested, may be expectedto operate procedures that enable it tolearn from mistakes and successes andto apply its experience in future practice.Therefore, when assessing the quality oflearning to live together in a school, its"mechanisms for identifying good practice"should be examined.

Another participant suggested a moreradical approach. The community, she said,might simply reclaim its full ownership ofeducation. If schools were set to serve

social cohesion as their primary task,their administrations could be mergedwith those of other community servicesserving the same goals, such as pre-schoolsupport, libraries and participativecultural institutions.

4.8 Food for thoughtIn this chapter, we have listened topractitioners and experts who havedistinguished themselves in promotinglearning to live together in variousmember states of the European Union.

It is obvious that their experience hasgiven them an understanding of what isneeded to enhance learning to live togetherin the schools of Europe. Generallyspeaking, the case studies and thediscussions have shown that there is nosingle curriculum that warrants success onthese matters and could be recommendedto all schools. Any achievements can beascribed to the interaction between thecurriculum and the didactics and arecrucially linked to the particular contextand circumstances of the schools.

Notwithstanding this divergence, therewas a complete consensus on the urgencyof learning to live together. Moreover, thepractitioners and experts provide policymakers wishing to enhance the role ofeducation in furthering citizenship andsocial cohesion with considerable foodfor thought. As a conclusion, therefore, a few pointers are given below.

• In developing strategies to enhancelearning to live together, initiativesthat start out by responding to localneeds appear to be most viable.

• Discussions on the definition ofcitizenship in terms of its underlyingvalues detract from the existingconsensus of practitioners on thecitizenship competencies that studentsshould develop.

• Children should start learning to livetogether as early as possible,preferably at pre-school age. Thisrequires the use of appropriatemethods, which take the family context as a point of departure.

• Learning to live together involvesacquiring knowledge but skills andattitudes are much more importanthere than for most other competenciestaught in the school system. This re-quires a new pedagogical vision andnon-orthodox approaches to teachingand learning, including cross- andextra-curricular approaches and apurposive approach to the hiddencurriculum.

• It is not sufficient to introducecitizenship education into the formal

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Parents who are “ideal” citizens may beexpected to look for a balance, beingprepared to forego some of the possibleprivate benefits for their children inexchange for the development of com-petencies that enable their children tocontribute to a more cohesive society.

However, one of the reasons for proclai-ming the urgency of learning to livetogether is the fact that not all parentsare ideal citizens. It may be expected thatif a choice imposes itself, many parentstend to favour educational goals thatappear to produce private benefits for theirchildren. As long as cognitive performanceis perceived as warranting private benefits,it is likely to put learning to live togetherat a disadvantage.

This implies that in starting and sustainingcivic education programmes, other playersbesides parents must be involved thatare prepared to take up the ownership oflearning to live together.

The third party sponsoring issueAs we have seen, such players are in factfound in the environment of the school. Invarious countries, NGOs and local socialservices have provided active support to thecivics initiatives presented at the meeting.

Some participants reported, however, thatthe lack of stability of such external supportaffects the sustainability of civic educationactivities. Receiving support from adiversity of sources implies that differentsets of conditions must be reconciled.Moreover, support from local and national authorities, charities, privatesponsors, international organizations

and international NGOs is often temporary.This affects the continuity of the projects.Schools have to discontinue projects orfind new sponsors, who impose new con-ditions by introducing new criteria andgoals. Finally, one participant remarked,there is the possibility that external spon-sors “buy” doubtful teaching methods oreven undesirable educational objectives.

The official status issueOn account of the above experiences, manyparticipants regarded the government asthe only real owner of civics education.Using the appropriate instruments, thegovernment should promote education forsocial cohesion as a priority in the schools.The Estonian solution – introducing civiceducation as a fully-fledged subject in thecurriculum – was viewed as an adequateresponse to the ownership problem.Especially the introduction of formalexams for civic education endows it witha status that prevents it from beingpushed into the margin; it also limits theinfluence of third parties on the contents.

Yet the introduction of citizenship educationas a discrete subject in the curriculumraised two objections. On the one hand,there were worries that it might discourage teachers of other subjects to include citizenship competencies in a cross-curricular approach.

On the other hand, it was feared that anearly introduction of citizenship educationas a discrete subject in the curriculummight convey the message that themethods are ready and the goals are clear,thus discouraging schools from exploringalternatives and searching for new ways

to instil citizenship competencies. As wasremarked in the portrait of St Joseph'sCollege in Belfast, ‘it is possible that thecreative possibilities may not be as freelyavailable if the work is being gearedtowards formal examination’.

The accountability issueThis takes us to the general problem of howto handle accountability for learning pro-cesses in a non-formal and informal setting.

In the orthodox mechanistic teaching schoolparadigm, there is a clear division of rolesbetween the teacher and the learner anda clear distinction between the meansand the end of a process. Efficiency ispursued through fixing well-definedlearning targets, through codifying andchopping up the subject matter, throughpre-sorting students into homogeneousgroups, through a division of labour andknowledge among teachers and throughreducing uncertainty in the learning processby planning and control. An efficient schoolis, then, a well-oiled mechanism that“delivers” or “dispenses” education. Itsefficiency can be accounted for by mea-suring and comparing inputs and outputs.

However, this conception of efficiency isnot viable to the extent that a school wantsto be a learning community, where learningis practised by doing, where the means andthe ends are entangled, where learninggoals are moving targets, where teacherslearn and learners teach each other,where heterogeneity is not a handicapbut learning material and where learningprocesses are not susceptible to planningand control insofar as they take placeoutside, in the real world. The efficiency

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curriculum. The socializing impact ofthe classroom experience (i.e., theformation of values, attitudes, percep-tions of self and the other) includes morethan what is visible through officialexplicit curricula. A crucial variable forthe development of civic competenciesis the way in which the curriculum isimparted in the classroom.

• The socializing impact of schooling isalso effectuated through the overallsocializing experience of the school asa (learning) community. The values(democracy, tolerance, social cohesion)to be imparted in citizenship educationshould therefore determine the way in which the school is organized andgoverned.

• Schools should team up with parents inthe education of their children by pro-viding guidance to parents who need itand encouraging parent participationin school life.

• For older children, the world surroundingthe school should not be seen as aliability for learning to live together but rather as an enormous coffer ofteaching aids. Insofar as living togetheris typically learnt by doing, schoolsshould organize and encouragecommunity service.

• Schools should also encouragestudents to explore democratic andcivic institutions by taking part in them.

• The teaching of virtual citizenship, inthe sense of having the citizenshipcompetencies needed in cyberspace,

is an essential new task of the schools.Students develop such competenciesbest through participation in Internetactivities, e.g., by setting up websitesand discussion forums.

• Teachers' commitment, attitudes andskills are crucial for the developmentof learning to live together. Their verydemanding role requires thedevelopment of new competencies.Teacher training institutions shouldfocus their research and teachingprogrammes on developing andsupporting learning to live together.

• Assessment of the quality of learning tolive together is necessary. However,there are numerous caveats. Indicatorsshould be relevant. The focus should beon the schools and the teaching, not onthe students. The social and culturalcontext of a school should determinewhich quality criteria are appropriate.The results of any assessment shouldbe used to enhance the teaching, notfor accountability. Finally, researchmust be done on how to assess thesocial outcomes of citizenshipeducation programmes.

• Mechanisms are needed to ensure thediffusion of evaluation results and ofpractical experience of citizenshipeducation programmes in general,especially across national borders.

• In order to ensure support for learningto live together among the teachersand the parents, education policymakers should express their firmcommitment to it.

• In order to ensure the viability andsustainability of learning to livetogether in the schools, authoritiesshould develop funding andaccountability systems that areconducive to the types of learningconsidered to be most appropriate for learning to live together.

‘Everybody's responsibility is NOT nobody's responsibility’The context of religious and political division in Northern Ireland, and the fact that it is a society struggling to emerge from a quarter-century of political violence makeshigh demands upon civic education programmes. It is indicative of the problem ofdealing with the legacy of this violence that the main political parties in NorthernIreland have difficulties in finding ways of working with agreed and shared politicalstructures. In such circumstances there are likely to be limits and constraints onCitizenship Education in schools.

In 1998 the Council for the Curriculum Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) began toexplore the possibility of incorporating a citizenship programme into the new curriculum.Civic Education was first introduced in a number of schools in 2001, as a cross-curricularsubject in a pilot curriculum development project developed by the University of Ulster.

One of the pioneer schools was St Joseph’s College, a Catholic secondary school locatedin South Belfast. St Joseph’s draws the majority of its students from two inner-citycommunities where the levels of social and economic disadvantage are very high; 57 percent of the students in the school are eligible for free school meals. In disadvantagedcommunities such as these, fatalism is often all too evident. Thus, the challenge to theschool in developing programmes that will engage interest and enthusiasm of studentsis particularly high.

In a review of the pilot, the initial cross-curricular set-up turned out not to be successful:cross-curricular subjects were “everybody’s responsibility”, which often came down to“nobody’s responsibility”. Schools did not address the issue, and teachers often treatedit half-heartedly. In the meantime, however, it had become clear that the new NorthernIreland Curriculum, due to become statutory in 2005 or 2006, will include Local andGlobal Citizenship. This stimulated schools to make deliberate attempts to mainstream

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Civic Education as a normal part of the school’s activity, including its inclusion in thetimetable and a commitment of teacher time.

St Joseph’s followed this line, and complemented it by instituting citizenship educationprizes in the school’s annual awards. In addition, it not only joined the second phase ofthe CCEA curriculum development programme, but also actively participated in severalCivic Education initiatives involving action projects in the surrounding community, suchas the Public Achievement programme (www.publicachievement.com). This programmeis based on teams of young people facilitated by trained coaches. A number of teachersat St Josephs were trained as coaches. The CCEA and Public Achievement types ofactivities mutually reinforce each other, the CCEA Local and Global Citizenship classproviding curriculum content and process, while the Public Achievement classprovides active learning and involvement by visitors from countries familiar withchallenges comparable to those of Northern Ireland (Palestine/Israel, South Africa,Serbia, United States).

Thus, for a number of years, St Joseph’s has been increasingly active in Civic Education.Considerable enthusiasm was raised among teachers, students and the surroundingcommunity and impressive teaching materials have been developed. The prime moverin all this was the principal. She succeeded in gaining the commitment of the SeniorManagement Team, and in mobilizing teachers and students. The case of St Joseph’sdemonstrates that training is hugely important, and above all, that commitment byleadership is essential.

‘School is a microcosm of society’Citizenship education initiatives in Maltese schools have been built on the foundation laidby the National Minimum Curriculum, which places great emphasis on the importanceof skills, competencies, attitudes and values and not merely on knowledge and information.

This inspires teaching staff and school management to place value education andpromotion of democratic experience high on the agenda. Promotion of CitizenshipEducation in the 80 state schools in Malta is the responsibility of the Education Officerfor Democracy and Values Education – the existence of a post of this nature is in itselfan indication of the importance attached to Citizenship Education and of its close linksto the democratic process.

The National Minimum Curriculum spurs all involved in education ‘to have a cleareducational vision, clear educational goals and a concrete strategy regarding howthese goals must be reached’. In line with this, all schools – in collaboration withstakeholders – are required to formulate School Development Plans, explaining theirmission statement, aims and objectives and links with the community. Civic Educationgoals are to be embedded in the school's development plan.

Citizenship Education is not a defined, stand-alone subject on the curriculum. From theperspective of the Maltese educational concept, Citizenship Education is not a subject“taught” during a stipulated period of time and at fixed moments. On the contrary, itshould permeate all subjects. Citizenship Education, in its widest sense, is made explicitmost convincingly by being experienced through the ethos and management of the school.It requires participation, awareness, value formation and assimilation. Stakeholdersare made aware of their rights, but responsibilities and duties are equally emphasized.Citizenship is thus considered to be the backbone of the daily running of the school butit also entails close relations with the surrounding environment. Obviously, involvingparents is a cornerstone but schools also work hard to strengthen their relations withthe communities they serve. These views are reflected quite accurately in a quote fromthe Lily of the Valley Girls’ Secondary School in Mosta: ‘The school is just a microcosmof the whole society. All that the school works on to promote citizenship will not beeffective if it is not linked to the larger picture.’

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For example, training in democratic skills is provided for by the existence of students’councils and leadership training sessions for representatives who are elected membersof such councils. Moreover, external speakers are invited to come to school andaddress the students on issues such as human rights, children’s rights, consumereducation and so on. Members of Local Councils visit schools to explain their functionand to introduce the projects they implement.

In Malta, the entire school system is divided into girls' and boys' schools. Interestingly, theEducation Officer for Democracy and Values Education notes that Citizenship Educationseems to be thriving more readily in girls’ schools. The boys’ schools show a certainindifference towards these issues. This phenomenon has inspired a plan to organize anational event where representatives from girls’ and boys’ schools would meet andparticipate in a game-simulation on a case relevant to the national democratic process.

‘Bringing the world into the classroom’Currently, the area where the Aurélia de Sousa School for Secondary and 3rd cycle BasicEducation in Porto is located is undergoing radical physical changes, due to the preparationsfor the Euro 2004 Championship. Although for the past few months the community has hadthe feeling it was living on a building site, the perspective of becoming the venue for animportant European event contributes to further the international atmosphere, which hadalready been strengthened by the European Capital of Culture status, acquired in 2001.

Although Aurélia de Sousa is in a relatively favoured position, its experience in Citizen-ship Education is of interest to other schools in Europe. Since 2002, the school participatedin UNESCO's Associated Schools Programme (ASP; see Chapter 2). Citizenship initiativesin Aurélia de Sousa comply with the directives of the Portuguese educational system,and with the bi-annual programme of activities submitted to the National UNESCOCommission. The school practices Citizenship Education inside and outside the classroom,

according to the principles of the Educational Project of the school and according toschool regulations. The Executive Council proposes the Educational Project to thewhole school community including the parents association and local authorities. By law,the educational project covers a period of three years and is revised every three years.

Since the school became part of ASP, it has adopted the principles of UNESCO schools.The methods used include teamwork, cross-subject communication, innovation and theintroduction – by each discipline and each teacher – of the world outside into the classroom.

In order to further Citizenship Education, an annual plan of activities is defined by thePedagogical Council. The plan runs across the curriculum and includes extra-curricularactivities. There is a distinction between primary education and secondary education.According to the regulations of the Portuguese primary education system, pupils in primaryeducation spend one hour per week on Civics Education. The subjects treated are verytangible, for instance: good eating habits and how to behave in traffic.

In secondary education, each subject department proposes a number of activities tobreathe life into the UNESCO principles. The school participates in the ASPnet Project"Young reporters for the environment" (www.youngreporters.org), which entails activitiessuch as working with a Greek and a Turkish school on urban environmental issues andwriting articles for publication by the international network. Aurélia de Sousa also takespart in the Hemicycle project on European Enlargement, and organized a WelcomingFair to the New Countries of the European Union. It sent a report to the EuropeanSchoolnet, which was published on the www.futurum2004.eun.org website. A debate onthe future of Europe was enlivened by a candidate to the European Parliament, invited bythe representatives of the students in the School Assembly. The European Networkingactivities of Aurélia were crowned by the possibility for a small delegation of staff andstudents to actually visit the European Parliament.

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A fine example of a Citizenship initiative by students is the website that was developedby student representatives in the Pedagogical Council. This site (www.esasmais.com)informs the school community about curricular and extra-curricular activities andactivities of the Students’ Association. In addition, it publishes students’ marks and italso provides a forum for discussion on issues such as abortion and terrorism.

Teach your parents!It is the children who teach their parents citizenship, that is what Aija Tuna, Latvianconsultant on Civic Education, told us. In a very natural way, just by telling their parentswhat they did today at school. There, pupils learn and practice democratic knowledgeand skills and ways of communication. For them it is natural, for their parents this isnew and very different from what they learned at school during the “Russian time”.

At school, nowadays teachers spend much time trying to develop the children’s ability tospeak, to express themselves, to develop their thinking skills and to take their responsibility.Their parents, in most cases, have experienced that being absent is fine . Speaking yourmind was very often quite dangerous, or at least, it was not regarded as acceptable.For example, career moves were always arranged by the management, people wereinvited for a position, a job.

Now young people have to use their skills to write a CV to apply, to present themselvesin order to get a scholarship or to get a job. Especially in the beginning, in the mid-1990s,this was a shock for parents and even now it still is a complete new thing for parents.Moreover, times have changed enormously and they feel insecure because they arenot able to give good advice to their children.

The school can help to gap the bridge between the generations by bringing togetherchildren, parents and the school. They invite parents onto the school board, where

parents can become decision makers. They learn that they can come up with suggestionsand express their opinions. However, they have to have knowledge to do so, they have tounderstand how a school operates, what changes have taken place in the educationalsystem and what are the main goals. Parents start to be involved but it is a long processbecause it requires knowledge.

It is also new and unusual for the teachers; parents who know what they are talkingabout, who have questions, who speak up. It can even be threatening for the teachers.However, it is a question of learning by doing. In some places, however, teachers receivein-service training on how to communicate with parents. For the parents too there issome training to learn how to assume their new role, meetings with a guest lecturer forinstance. Aija herself is one of those guest lecturers and recently, on a beautiful Fridayafternoon in spring, she was gladly surprised that despite the beautiful weather theschool’s hall was full with very interested parents eager to take up their new role. Thatmeans that they were no longer ordered by the school to do this or that but that theywere asked ‘what can be your contribution to the school community? What are yourhobbies, what are your skills? Could you please spend some time with us?’ This approachwas very successful, a key for co-operation and has even uplifted the whole communityin some cases.

Working in long-term projects taking 2 or 3 years is especially fascinating, says Aija:you can just see how people change, how they open up, get courage, start to influenceprocesses around them. ‘That is the best treat you can get!’

Three-year-old citizens?Citizenship is not ‘only for adults’, even for young children it is a meaningful concept, inthe broad sense of learning to live together. That is what Birgitta Kimber from Swedenmade clear in the conversation we had with her in the lobby of an old Dutch castle.

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malta• sir arturo mercieca primary school in victoria on the island

of gozo is committed to its mission to "promote values, skills

and knowledge necessary for individuals to become

reflective, responsive and responsible citizens". to this end

the school focuses not only on the cognitive domain but also

on the affective and psychomotor domains.

• the mission statement not only requires teachers' and

ancillary staff's cooperation to create a democratic school

system, but also parents' cooperation.

• the school project "my day ... your day" focused on how the

children of sir arturo mercieca primary school and its six

partner schools in other countries of the european union

spend their leasure time.

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‘Civic education means that you have to prepare young people and children to live inthe real world and that is not just thinking, but also being able to act. To act and toteach behaviour and to live it, more than just to think it and be nice about it, that iswhat it is all about. Thus we find that lots of children, when you sit and talk to them,know exactly how to be good friends, they know exactly how to resolve conflicts buttwo minutes later they will fight in the schoolyard. Because then they have forgottenwhat they were saying; their actions are different.

So we have taken a different approach, we have looked for ways to train them, how toactually behave in the manners we want them to learn, to be empathic and to understandothers. Then we have been looking at the underlying skills for all that. What are the skillsneeded? What part of the brain is actually used in learning these skills? There is a thinkingpart of the brain and an emotional part, which can take over the thinking part, if youare angry or very frightened for example. You want to act: you want to run away or tohit somebody. We want to train the children how to behave in such situations, by living it,rather than thinking it. Take anger management for example: we teach it first by roleplaying, by games, by co-operating with the parents and for the little ones we have“the traffic light”. We explain that anger is as dangerous as a car that hits the red light.The red light means danger for yourself and for others, you can hurt yourself, so youhave to stop and calm down. So we teach them calm-down techniques and we talk tothe parents and about these techniques: you can count to ten for instance. One littleboy preferred to wash his face in cold water: that was his calm-down technique. Theyrole-play this, but in real life, when it happens, his family and friends remind him to washhis face.

It is an ongoing process and the whole school has to get the same idea. Of course nobodywill always stay calm, but the first step is to practice to stay calm. The more you practice,the better you get at it.

The next step after the calming down is to think of solutions, of alternatives how to copewith the situation. If your friend prefers to play with someone else, you could offer somesweets; invite him or her for the next day etc. and then you go for your best solution.

For the little ones we have set different goals. The three-year-olds, for example, mustlearn to wait for their turn; they should recognize feelings of anger but of happiness aswell in somebody else’s face. So it is not only behaviour but also a bit of reflection andcommunication.

We have five different areas: empathy, regulation of emotions, social skills, motivationand “knowledge about myself”. You teach them to “read” situations, to read faces, to lookat themselves. It is an ongoing process, week after week after week. Later on, whenthey are older, they practice active listening, communication skills, using I-statementsetc, while still continuing to practice the skills learned earlier. This training is part of lifeat school but it is also a 60-minute subject once a week, for the little ones it is dividedin three sessions of 20 minutes. The teachers are very important in this very social andaffective concept of civic education. The parents too, have an important role: they haveto help their children to live outside the school what they have practised and lived inside.Parents love it; in particular when their child is difficult, because all of a sudden theyget tools to help their children at home.

When we talk about civic education and citizenship, this is the step we must start with,these are the skills underlying it all. Too often we treat citizenship as an intellectual thingbut that is not enough. It is important that children learn that they have a choice, thatthey have a grip on their own lives, which gives hope for the future; the fact that theycan control their own lives regardless of what is happening.’

The preceding chapter ended with fifteenpointers resulting from a meeting of practi-tioners and experts from fourteen Europeancountries. Issues raised by practitionersdoing their work should be the policymakers' prime concern. Read them. Theyare more important than this chapter'sconclusions.

5.1 The social cohesion deficitThe challenge faced by European countriesin the decades to come is intellectually clear.The welfare and wellbeing of a society re-quires social cohesion, while social cohesionin complex societies requires sophisticatedforms of citizenship among the members oftheir populations. Important and lastingglobal trends have adversely affected thepotential of our societies for spontaneoustransmission of citizenship to the nextgenerations. As a result, the quality of socialcohesion is under pressure at a juncturewhen institutional changes, includingEuropean integration, ask for a higherquality of social cohesion. Society more andmore looks to education to fill the socialcohesion deficit that is thus being produced.

5.1.1 Rising awarenessSince Jacques Delors' Commission onEducation for the Twenty-first Centuryfocused our attention onto what it calledthe crisis of social cohesion and introducedthe issue onto the international agenda,awareness of the need to learn to livetogether has been rising rapidly, as well asthe expectations that are put on educationto fulfil it. At the international levelUNESCO, the OECD and the Council of Europe as well as the European Unionhave in various ways contributed toraising this awareness.

At the same time, the prominence of theissue on national education agendas hasrisen in all European countries. Media inmany countries have been focusing onissues directly dealing with what theyperceive as declining involvement on thepart of young people in civic activities.

5.1.2 Strategic analysesMeanwhile, a great deal of conceptualwork has also been done on devisingsolutions. There is considerable agreement

on the knowledge, skills, behaviour andattitudes that may be expected from futurecitizens as well as on the fundamentalunderlying values. Despite diverging con-ceptual frameworks, various multilateralorganizations have developed similarsets of key competencies for learning tolive together. Moreover, they have giventhese competencies a prominent place in the integral systems of competenciesthat they are presently developing. Anexcellent example is the way in which thegoals of learning to live together have

5 Synthesis and conclusion

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Diversity training for Northern Irish teachersIn the curriculum of its Teacher Training College, the University of Ulster has incorporatedtwo “diversity workshops”; common activities for all students, aimed at preparing pro-spective teachers for coping with diversity within groups of pupils. In the first workshop,game-simulation provides student teachers with an introduction to diversity issues.Subsequently, during teaching practice in their own schools, they do observationexercises, aimed at discovering that classes are not homogeneous. In the second workshop,the diversity issues observed by the students in their own schools are discussed.Simulation games featuring diversity-issues from other countries demonstrate possibleways of coping with diversity. A resource pack for teachers has been developed based onmaterial about cases such as the civil rights movement in the United States, the Holocaust,and apartheid in South Africa.

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school, we should also know how thisworks out in society. The studies on theoutcomes of citizenship or civic edu-cation discussed in Chapter 3 point to apositive knowledge effect but much lessis clear about effects on behaviour andattitudes. More particularly, we do notknow very much about the persistence ofattitudes acquired at school, and aboutcrucial ages and methods. We also knowlittle about the mechanisms of transitionfrom inculcated individual attitudes intosocial patterns.

Finally, we are a long way from translatingwhat we do know into models for schoolorganization, teacher behaviour and teachertraining curricula.

So what is needed now?

5.3 Generating and diffusingknowledge and experienceIt is important to enrich the agenda forlearning to live together with the develop-ment of large-scale mechanisms for thegeneration and diffusion of knowledgeand experience about learning to livetogether through pilots, experiments andmonitoring. The mechanism should ofcourse focus on schools but also involveresearch institutions and teacher trainingcolleges. New teachers should be trainednot only to apply the latest knowledge butalso to be aware of its insufficiencies, aswell as to be eager to add to it.

The scale of the European area and itsdiverse systems and methods offers anexcellent opportunity to learn from eachother, to set up networks to conduct pilotsand compare results. It is important,

however, that pilots and experiments bewell-structured, well-monitored and well-evaluated. Co-operation should not berestricted to loosely-knit networks. Theseare good for fine-tuning and diffusion ofnew results but there should also be ahard core of serious experimental designson which commitments are made overlonger periods, so as to be able to look atlong-term effects.

We must realize that if we subscribe to theanalysis pointing to a growing social co-hesion deficit, we are dealing with a matterof urgency for most, if not all, Europeanmember states. Without strengtheningsocial cohesion our societies will notprosper. When we start now, we may takea decade or two to see the results.

5.4 The European dimensionThis raises the final question: how canthe European Union assist us? Or, howcan we assist each other through theEuropean Union?

At first sight, the European acquis offersconsiderable scope for common actionfor learning to live together.

5.4.1 Learning to live together is acommon issueTo start with, we are facing shared chal-lenges. All EU countries see the same valuesaffected by the same global trends. All EUcountries share the institutional changesthat have been brought about by Europeanintegration. All European member stateslook to education for a solution.

Learning to live together is, consequently,eligible for Community action aimed at

developing exchanges of information andexperience on issues common to theeducation systems of the Member States,as covered by Article 149 of the Treaty ofthe EU. The required instrument, viz. co-operation between educational esta-blishments, is mentioned in the samearticle. Moreover, since learning to livetogether contributes to social cohesionat all levels, it contributes to developingthe European dimension in education,which is also one of the aims mentionedin Article 149. As we have seen, the goalsand priorities of the European educationand youth programmes include (active)citizenship.

5.4.2 Learning to live together is aLisbon issueAs we saw in Chapter 2, the Lisbon processhas considerably reinforced the focus onboth social cohesion and education. InLisbon, governments asked for a challen-ging programme for the modernization ofeducation systems. Working groups wereset up to further agreement on commonobjectives. The 2001 Stockholm Council,the 2002 Barcelona Council and the 2003

222 Birzea et al. 2004: 21

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been integrated into the complete set ofcompetencies proposed by the EU WorkingGroup on Basic Skills, which is reproducedin Appendix 2.

In educational practice too, the conceptualside does not present a problem. As we seein Chapter 4, practitioners from a widevariety of European countries easily agreeon the specifications of the behaviourthey think future citizens should develop:the ideal “citizen child” was easy to sketch.Whatever divergences there may be onvalues to be transferred in education, the consensus on the learning goals thatneed to be reached to promote socialcohesion is impressive.

5.1.3 Political actionThere is also a shared will to proceed topractical action. Active Citizenship hasbeen an important focus in the presentgeneration of European Education andYouth programmes. Social cohesion is aprominent goal in the Lisbon process. Inmost member states it is now agreed that"preparing for the responsibilities ofcitizenship" is a core task of our educationsystems. All member states have, in thepast six or seven years, taken measuresto introduce, reinforce or reaffirm learningto live together in their education policiesor are planning to do so shortly. Many ofthem have set up support structures.Moreover, many communities, parentsand schools have engaged in grass-rootsinitiatives to promote learning to livetogether in response to local needs.

5.2 ObstaclesAll this does not imply that Europeaneducation is already set for a new era

of enhanced social cohesion. There areconsiderable obstacles that need to beobviated.

5.2.1 The awareness gapTo start with, support for learning to livetogether is not as broad as it should be.Although nobody is against it, there is aconsiderable indifference towards itamong both teachers and parents. Asdiscussed in chapter 4, when faced withwhat they perceive as a choice, manyteachers prefer to further knowledgerather than attitudes, while parents tendto favour individual learning goals ratherthan public learning goals.

Raising public awarenessThe Council of Europe's proclamation of2005 as the European Year of Citizenshipthrough Education may provide a majorimpetus to amending this situation.Provided that governments visiblyassociate themselves with the goals andactively promote and publicize the rangeof activities being planned, a campaignthat is visibly all-European may removesome of the scepticism.

5.2.2 The compliance gapThe comparatively narrow basis of supportfor learning to live together among schoolstakeholders may underlie the gap,observed by Birzea, between policyintentions, policy delivery and effectivepractice.222 However, there are morepossible causes. A sceptical attitude tolearning to live together in schools issometimes reinforced by accountabilitysystems that award schools for “academic”learning achievements rather than fortheir contribution to social cohesion.

This is not to say that there is necessarilya trade-off between individual and publiclearning goals – citizenship competencesmay be conducive to achieving individuallearning goals as well – but that such atrade-off is perceived to be imposed on theschools. The paradoxical consequence isthat school quality and achievementlevels are presently on the rise in manyparts of Europe, whereas public satisfac-tion with the education system as a wholeseems to be declining.

Planning, control and accountabilityThe problem here is that attitudes andbehaviour are less amenable to beingtaught in traditional curricular settingsthan “academic” competencies like reading,writing or mathematics. As we saw inChapter 4, educationalists consider thatlearning to live together should be practicednot, or not only, in a curricular approachbut also, or predominantly, in a cross-curricular or even non-curricular approach.These types of learning are not highlyfavoured in most existing systems ofplanning, control and accountability.

5.2.3 The knowledge gaps However, it is not so clear at present whatsystems should replace the existing systems.As it emerges from all chapters of thisbook, our present knowledge on how bestto impart citizenship competencies isincomplete. In many cases we do notknow what methods work. As long as thisremains the case, it would be prematureto install systems that would impose orelicit uniformity.

This is not the only knowledge missing.Even if we knew what works within the

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The Treaty on European Union(97/C 340/02)Chapter 3 Education, vocational training and youth Article 149 (ex Article 126) 1 The Community shall contribute to the development of quality education by encouraging cooperation between Member States

and, if necessary, by supporting and supplementing their action, while fully respecting the responsibility of the Member States forthe content of teaching and the organisation of education systems and their cultural and linguistic diversity.

2 Community action shall be aimed at:- developing the European dimension in education, particularly through the teaching and dissemination of the languages of the

Member States; - encouraging mobility of students and teachers, inter alia by encouraging the academic recognition of diplomas and periods of study;- promoting cooperation between educational establishments; - developing exchanges of information and experience on issues common to the education systems of the Member States; - encouraging the development of youth exchanges and of exchanges of socio-educational instructors; - encouraging the development of distance education.

3 The Community and the Member States shall foster cooperation with third countries and the competent international organisationsin the field of education, in particular the Council of Europe.

4 In order to contribute to the achievement of the objectives referred to in this Article, the Council: - acting in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 251, after consulting the Economic and Social Committee and the

Committee of the Regions, shall adopt incentive measures, excluding any harmonisation of the laws and regulations of theMember States;

- acting by a qualified majority on a proposal from the Commission, shall adopt recommendations.

Article 150 (ex Article 127) 1 The Community shall implement a vocational training policy which shall support and supplement the action of the Member States,

while fully respecting the responsibility of the Member States for the content and organisation of vocational training. 2.Community action shall aim to: - facilitate adaptation to industrial changes, in particular through vocational training and retraining; - improve initial and continuing vocational training in order to facilitate vocational integration and reintegration into the labour market; - facilitate access to vocational training and encourage mobility of instructors and trainees and particularly young people; - stimulate cooperation on training between educational or training establishments and firms; - develop exchanges of information and experience on issues common to the training systems of the Member States. 3.The Community and the Member States shall foster cooperation with third countries and the competent internationalorganisations in the sphere of vocational training. 4.The Council, acting in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 251 and after consulting the Economic and SocialCommittee and the Committee of the Regions, shall adopt measures to contribute to the achievement of the objectives referred toin this Article, excluding any harmonisation of the laws and regulations of the Member States.

Appendix 1

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Brussels Council had emphasized the roleof active citizenship and the role ofeducation in promoting social cohesion.

As a result, citizenship competencies havebeen given considerable prominence inthe set of key competencies produced asa part of the implementation of the "Edu-cation and Training Work Programme".As we saw in Chapter 2, the working

group recommends that the developmentof key competencies be one of the over-arching principles in Community-supportedprogrammes in the fields of education.Where necessary, indicators should bedeveloped for assessing progress in pur-suing these competencies in the population.

5.5 Scope for synergyPresenting specific proposals for Europeanaction is not part of this study. That is amatter between the experts and practi-tioners on the one hand and politicianson the other. However, we could say thatsome pieces seem to fit. The set of keycompetencies produced in the Lisbonfollow-up includes citizenship competen-cies. We have seen that present knowledgeabout the way in which citizenship com-petencies are developed in young peopleis insufficient. It seems natural now, inorder to validate and implement thecomplete set of key competencies, to put the competencies whose applicationis more uncertain than that of others to the test. Here the European educationprogrammes offer a tool that can be usedto further the implementation of theLisbon process.

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Working group on Basic skills, foreign language teaching and entrepreneurship; Report November 2003, Annex 2.

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Appendix 2

Knowledge Skills Attitudes

• vocabulary;• functional grammar

and style;• types of literary text (fairy

tales, myths, legends,poems, lyric poetry,theatre, short stories,novels) and their mainfeatures;

• types of non- literary text(cv, applications, reports,editorials, essays, speech,etc) and their mainfeatures;

• various types of verbalinteraction (conversations,interviews, debates, etc)and their main features;

– functions of language;– the main features of

different styles andregisters in spoken andwritten language (formal,informal, scientific,journalistic, colloquial, etc).

• be aware of the variabilityof language and communi-cation forms over time andin different geographical,social and communicationenvironments;

• have confidence whenspeaking in public;

• be willing to strive foraesthetic quality in expression beyond thetechnical correctness of a word/ phrase;

• develop a love of literature;• approach the opinions and

arguments of others with anopen mind and engage inconstructive and criticaldialogue.

• Develop a positive attitudeto the mother tongue, andrecognise it as a potentialsource of personal andcultural enrichment;

• develop a positive attitude tointercultural communication.

Key Competence 1Communication in the mothertongue

DefinitionCommunication is the ability to express and interpret thoughts, feelings and facts in both oral and written form in the full range ofsocietal contexts, work, home and leisure.

• communicate, in written or oral form, and understand ormake others understand, various messages, in a variety ofsituations and for different purposes;

• read and understand different texts, adopting strategiesappropriate to various reading purposes (reading for infor-mation, for study or for pleasure) and to various text types;

• listen to and understand various spoken messages in a varietyof communicative situations;

• initiate, sustain and end a conversation in differentcommunicative contexts;

• search, collect and process written information, data andconcepts in order to use them in studies and to organiseknowledge in a systematic way;

• speak concisely and clearly and monitor whether one isgetting the message across successfully;

• write different types of texts for various purposes; monitorthe writing process (from conception to proof- reading);

• formulate one's arguments, in speaking or writing, in aconvincing manner and take full account of other viewpoints,whether expressed in written or oral form;

• use support techniques (such as notes,schemes, maps) toproduce, present or understand complex texts or written or oralform (speeches, conversations, instructions, interviews, debates);

• distinguish, in listening, speaking, reading and writing,relevant from irrelevant information.

Knowledge Skills Attitudes

• vocabulary • functional grammar

and style;• a range of literary and

non-literary texts (fairytales, myths, legends, lyric poetry, theatre, shortstories, novels, letters,short reports, etc) and theirmain features.

• sensitivity to culturaldifferences;

• willingness to engage withother cultures through thespoken word;

• disposition to deconstructcultural stereotypes.

Key Competence 2Communication in foreign languages

DefinitionThe same definition as communication in mother tongue but applied to a language different from the one( s) in which the child israised by parents and at school.

• initiate, sustain and conclude a conversation on topics thatare familiar, of personal interest or pertinent to everyday life;

• listen to and understand spoken messages in a limited rangeof situations (topics that are familiar, of personal interest orpertinent to everyday life);

• read and understand non- specialist written texts on a limitedrange of subjects; or in some cases, specialist texts in afamiliar field.

• Produce written material.223

Knowledge Skills Attitudes

Sound knowledge of numbersand the ability to use them ina variety of everyday contextsis a foundation skill thatcomprises various elements,such as:• addition and subtraction;• multiplication and division;• percentages and ratios;• weights and measures.

• overcoming ‘fear ofnumbers’,

• willingness to usenumerical computation inorder to solve problems inthe course of day- to- daywork and domestic life.

Key Competence 3.1Mathematicalliteracy

DefinitionAt the most basic level, mathematical literacy comprises the use of addition and subtraction, multiplication and division,percentages and ratios, through mental and written computation for problem- solving purposes.

Mathematical literacy has many applications in everyday life:• managing a household budget (equating income to

expenditure, planning ahead, saving);• shopping (comparing prices, understanding weights and

measures, value for money);• travel and leisure (relating distances to travel time;

comparing currencies and prices).

223 The group believes that everyone should become proficient in all four dimensions in one foreign language. In addition, for one other foreign language they should achieve proficiency in receptive skills(listening and reading). The levels of proficiency to be aimed at should be in accordance with those described in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: learning, teaching,assessment. All students completing general compulsory education should aim to reach B1 (Threshold) or B1+ (Strong Threshold) for all four skills in one foreign language, and for receptive skills in asecond foreign language. By the end of their post- compulsory secondary education, students should have reached level B2 (Vantage) or B2 (Strong Vantage).

The set of key competencies as published in the appendix to the last (November 2003) progress report of Working Group B on the Implementation of the "Education & Training 2010" Work Programme. Red text: the knowledge, skills and attitudes that particularly contribute to learning to live together.

111110

Knowledge Skills Attitudes

• mathematical terms andconcepts; including themost relevant theorems ofgeometry and algebra.

• respect for truth• willingness to look for

reasons to support one’sassertions;

• willingness to accept orreject the opinions ofothers on the basis of valid(or invalid) reasons orproofs.

Key Competence 3.1Mathematicalliteracy (continues)

DefinitionMath competence thus involves the use of mathematical modes of thought (logical and spatial thinking) and presentation (formulas, models, constructs, graphs/ charts) which have universal application in explaining, and describing reality.

• decoding and interpreting symbolic and formal mathematicallanguage (symbols and formulae), and understanding itsrelations to natural language;

• handling mathematical symbols and formulae;• representing mathematical entities, understanding and

utilising (decoding, interpreting, distinguishing between)different sorts of representations of mathematical objects,phenomena and situations, choosing and switching betweenrepresentations as and when appropriate;

• following and assessing chains of arguments, put forward byothers, uncovering the basic ideas in a given line of argument(especially a proof) etc;

• thinking and reasoning mathematically (masteringmathematical modes of thought);

• abstracting and generalising when relevant to the question;modelling mathematically (i. e. analysing and buildingmodels) – using and applying existing models to questions athand;

• communicating in, with, and about mathematics;• making use of aids and tools (IT included);• knowing the kinds of questions that mathematics may offer

the answer to;• distinguishing between different kinds of mathematical

statements (is something an assertion or an assumption, etc);• understanding the scope and limitations of a given concept;• understanding mathematical proofs;• critical thinking

Knowledge Skills Attitudes

• basic principles of thenatural world, technologyand of technologicalproducts and processes:

• the relationship betweentechnology and other fields:scientific progress (forexample in medicine);society (values, moralquestions) culture (forinstance multimedia), theenvironment (pollution,sustainable development).

• the development of acritical appreciation ofscience and technology,including safety/ securityissues as well as ethicalquestions.

Key Competence 3.2Science and Technology

DefinitionScience is taken to refer to the body of knowledge, and methodology employed, to explain the natural world. Technology is viewed asthe application of that knowledge in order to modify the natural environment in response to perceived human wants or needs.

• use and manipulate technological tools and machines as well as scientific data and insights to obtain a goal or reach a conclusion.

Knowledge Skills Attitudes

• the main computerfunctions, including wordprocessing, spread sheets,internet/ email, databases,information storagemanagement.

• propensity to workautonomously and in teams;

• desire critically to assessinformation available;

• awareness that the lowerthreshold to accessinformation may need to bebalanced by higherstandards of ethics andtaste – ability to distinguishwhat is ‘accessible’ fromwhat is ‘acceptable’;

• sensitivity to privacy issues.

Key Competence 4ICT

DefinitionThe use of multi- media technology to retrieve, store, create, present and exchange information.

• process large quantities of information and distinguishrelevant from irrelevant information or disinformation,objective information from subjective information;

• communicate via email;• access (and possibly create) a website.

113

112

poland• activity week at the end of the year at a warsaw

primary school.

• pupils of gimnasium no 51 in warsaw debate poland's

entry into the european union.

• a referendum on poland's accession into the

european union.

• project on the european union and poland at

gimnasium no 51.

115114

Knowledge Skills Attitudes

• self- knowledge: knowingone’s preferred learningmethods, the strengths andweaknesses of one’s skillsand qualifications;

• knowledge of availableeducation and trainingopportunities.

• adaptability and flexibility;• self- motivation and

confidence in one’scapability to succeed;

• a self- concept that upholdsone’s willingness to changeand further developcompetences;

• sense of initiative (to learn);• positive appreciation of

learning as a life-enrichingactivity.

Key Competence 5Learning to learn

DefinitionThe competences necessary to organise and regulate one’s learning, both alone and in groups; to acquire, process, evaluate andassimilate new knowledge; and to apply these competencies in a variety of contexts, including problem solving and learning, athome, in education/ training, in work and in society.

• time management: creating opportunities to dedicate time tolearning;

• information management;• autonomy, discipline, perseverance in the learning process;• to use appropriate means (intonation, gesture, mimicry etc)

to support oral communication;• to understand and produce various multimedia messages

(written or spoken language, sound, music etc);• to concentrate for extended as well as short periods of time;• to reflect critically on the object and purpose of learning.

Knowledge Skills Attitudes

• civil rights;• the national language;• the constitution of the host

country;• the roles and responsibi-

lities of institutions thathave relevance in the policy-making process at local,regional, national, Europeanand international level;

• knowledge of Europeanneighbours;

• knowledge of key figures inlocal and nationalgovernment; politicalparties and their policies;

• knowledge of main events,trends and change- agentsof national, European andworld history;

• understanding of conceptssuch as democracy,citizenship and scope ofgovernment.

• understand and appreciatedifferences between valuesystems of differentreligious or ethnic origins;

• balance tolerance andrespect for (the values andprivacy of) others with apropensity to react againstanti social behaviour;

• a sense of belonging to yourlocality, country and (yourpart of) the world;

• support for social diversityand social cohesion;

• willingness to participate incommunity decision-making;

• disposition to volunteer andto participate in civicactivities.

Key Competence 6.2Civic Competencies

DefinitionThe scope of civic competencies is broader than that of interpersonal competences by virtue of their existence at the societal level.They can be described as the set of competences that allow the individual to achieve participation in civic life.

• informed participation in voting;• critical reception of information from mass media;• participation in community /neighbourhood activities;• ability to interface effectively with institutions in the public

domain;• ability to display solidarity by showing an interest in and

helping to solve problems affecting the local or the widercommunity.

Knowledge Skills Attitudes

• codes of conduct andmanner generally acceptedor promoted in society;

• how to maintain goodhealth, hygiene andnutrition for oneself andone’s family.

• interest in and respect forothers;

• disposition to compromise;• integrity;• assertiveness.

Key Competence 6.1Interpersonal, intercultural, social competences

DefinitionInterpersonal competences imply all forms of behaviour which one must master as an individual in order to be able to participate inan efficient, constructive way and to resolve conflict in social life, in interaction with other individuals (or groups) both in personal,family and public contexts.

• confidence and empathy in relation to other individuals;• tolerance in relation to the views and behaviour of others;• control of aggression and violence or self-destructive patterns

of behaviour;• the ability to maintain a degree of separation between the

professional and personal spheres of life, and to resist the transfer of professional conflict into personal domains.

Formal curriculum provisions for EDC in Europe224

117

Appendix 3

Country Terminology Educational level Approach Time allocation

Austria Civic education

History and civiceducation

Primary and secondary

Secondary (ISCED 2 en 3)

Cross-curriculareducational principle

New statutory subject

Belgium

French-speakingcommunity

Flemish-speakingcommunity

Citizen education

Education for citizenship

Primary and secondary

Primary and secondary

Mandatory, integrated to moral education andhistory Cross-curricular themes

Cross-curricular themes

2 hours per week (withinmoral education thematiccontents integrated tohistory teaching)

3 thematic circles of EDC

Cyprus Social studies

History, civic educationand economics

Primary (grades 1-6)

Lower secondary orgymnasium (grades 7-9)

Separate subject

Separate subject Civic education is taughtas separate subject for 1 hour per week for 1 semester

Czech Republic Civics

Social sciences andeducation for citizenship

Primary (grades 6-9)

Secondary (grades 12-13)

Separate subject

Integrated to socialsciences, ecologicaleducation andphilosophy

1-2 hours per week

2 hours per week – thenational schoolcurriculum: 1 hour perweek – the basic schoolcurriculum

Denmark Social Science

History and civics

Primary and secondary(grades 1-9 and 10-12)

Upper secondary(grades 10-12)

Separate subject,mandatory

Mandatory, separatesubject

116

Knowledge Skills Attitudes

• identifying opportunities forthe development of one’spersonal professional orbusiness activities.

• Disposition to show initiatives;• Positive attitude to change

and innovation;• Willingness to identify areas

in which to demonstrate thefull range of enterprise skills- for example at home, atwork and in the community.

Key Competence 7Entrepreneurship

DefinitionEntrepreneurship has a passive and an active component: the propensity to induce changes oneself, but also the ability to welcomeand support innovation brought about by external factors by welcoming change, taking responsibility for one’s actions, positive ornegative, to finish what we start, to know wherewe are going, to set objectives and meet them, and have the motivation to succeed.

• planning, organising, analysing, communicating, doing, de-briefing, evaluating and recording;

• the skills of project development and implementation;• working co- operatively and flexibly as part of a team;• identifying one’s personal strengths and weaknesses;• displaying proactive behaviour and responding positively to

changes;• assessing and taking risks as and when warranted.

Knowledge Skills Attitudes

• basic knowledge of certainmanifestations of art andculture, including popularculture;

• basic knowledge of theconventions of, andexemplars from, each of thecreative-expressive mediaand their historicaldevelopment.

• a strong sense of identitycombined with respect fordiversity;

• disposition to cultivate anaesthetic capacity whichlays extensive foundationsfor participation and acontinuing interest incultural life;

• awareness of the evolutionof popular taste;

• a positive attitude to allforms of cultural expression.

Key Competence 8Cultural awareness

DefinitionAppreciation of the creative expression of ideas, thoughts, feelings or opinions as manifest in a range of media including music,literature, arts and sports.

• discussing and debating on a wide range of subjectspertaining to a broad definition of culture: such as: literature,music, film, performing arts, plastic arts, photography,design, fashion, video art, architecture, urbanisation,landscape; architecture, heritage; food; and language.

• comparing one’s own expressive- creative point of view andmanifestations with those of others.

224 Compiled from Birzea et al. 2004: 35-42 and Kerr 2003: 48-50.

119118

Estonia Social education

Social education

Primary (grade 4)

Secondary (grades 9 en 12)

Separate subject,mandatory

Separate subject,mandatory

1 lesson a week

2 lessons a week

Greece Civic education

Ancient Greek literature,history, psychology, civiclaw, and politicalinstitutions, sociology,history and socialsciences, Europeancivilization and roots,communicationtechnologies,Environmental sciences

Primary

Upper secondary(lyceum)

Cross-curricular activities

Specific subjects

Hungary History and citizenship

Anthropology and social studies

Social studies

Study of man and ethics

Introduction to philosophy

History and citizenship

Primary (grades 5-8)

Primary (grade 7)

Secondary (grades 9-12)

Secondary (grades 11)

Secondary (grade 12)

Secondary vocational (grade 12)

Statutory core (part ofthe curriculum area“man and society”)

Integrated

Integrated

Separate subject

10 to 14% curriculumtime

Possible time allocationin the local curriculum

Ireland Social, personal andhealth education

Civic, social and politicaleducation

Leaving CertificateApplied and the TransitionYear Programme

Primary

Lower secondary

Upper secondary

Integrated

Compulsory, separatesubject, mandatory

Part of specialprogrammes (subjectsuch as English, history,geography andeconomics)

Three strands: myself;myself and others;myself and the widerworld

Examined in juniorcertificate

France Living together

Civic education

Civic, legal and socialeducation

Primary (ages 6-8)

Primary and lowersecondary (age 8-11)

Upper secondary

Separate subject,mandatory

Separate subject,mandatory

Separate and integratedstatutory core (linked tohistory and geography)

Formal national examina-tions on civic education

3 to 4 hours weekly outof 26

Germany Social studies (Sozialkunde)

Social studies

Primary

Upper secondary

Subsidiary subject andpart of other subjects (history, geography andeconomics), mandatory

Integrated, non-mandatory

Included in the curriculaof all Länder (federalstates)

Optional for generaluniversity entrancecertificate

Finland History and socialstudies

History and socialstudies

History and socialstudies

Primary (grades 1-6)

Primary (grades 5-6)

Lower secondary(grades7-9)

Upper secondary

Civics is integrated tothe environmental andnatural studies as partof it

Separate subject,mandatory

Separate subject,mandatory

Separate subject,mandatory

570 lessons throughout6 years

114 weekly lessons over6 years

2 lessons a week each 3 years

1 of 5 compulsorycourses (each 38 hours)is social studies

121120

Italy Social studies

History and civiceducation

History and civiceducation, Economics

Primary

Lower secondary

Upper secondary

Integrated, statutory core

Separate subject

Separate and cross-curricular (civics linked tohistory, geography andeconomics)

Poland Humanities

History and society

Knowledge about society

Civic education

Primary

Lower secondary

Upper secondary

Upper secondary andsecondary vocational

Integrated

Integrated curriculum area

Separate subject

Separate subject

Portugal Personal and socialdevelopment

Basic education

Upper secondary(grades 10-12)

Each school defines itsown curriculum projectaccording to the guidelinesof the national curriculum

Cross-curricular activities

EDC is to be developed ascross curricular activitiesand non-disciplinarycurriculum areas (e.g.project area, assistedstudy, civic education)

Slovakia Civics education

Social science

Primary (grades 6-9)

Secondary (grades 9-11)

Separate subject:mandatory

Separate subject

1 hour per week

Slovenia Civic education andethics

Civic culture

Social sciences

Primary (grades 7-8)

Secondary (grade 9)

Secondary VET schools

Separate subject,mandatory

Separate subject,optional course (within“humanities” module)

Separate subject,mandatory

1 hour per week

1 hour per week (32 hours per school year)

85 hours per school year(for the 2 years program).70 hours per school year(for the 3 years program).

Spain Science, geography andhistory

Ethics, social sciences,geography, and history

Philosophy, history:history of thecontemporary world(social sciences track)

Primary

Secondary (first andsecond cycles)

Upper secondary(Bachillerato)

Separate subject

Separate subject

Separate subject andcross-curricular themes.

Latvia Social sciences

Social sciences

Lower secondary

Upper secondary(grades 10-12)

Integrated

Integrated

Civics is part of a subjectblock (social sciencestogether with healtheducation, ethics,economy and history)

Lithuania Principles of civic society

Principles of civic society

Primary (grades 7-8)

Secondary (grade 10)

Separate subject

Separate subject

1 lesson a week

2 lessons a week

Luxembourg Civic education (coursd’instruction civique)

Upper secondary (grade 12)

Separate subject 1 lesson per week

Malta Learning democracy Primary and secondary Cross-curricularintegrated in all subjects

1 Each school has todevelop its own curri-culum based on NationalMinimum Curriculum

The Netherlands Citizenship education orsocial and environmentalstudies which includesgeography, history, societyenvironment and healthyliving.

Social studies(Maatschappijleer)

Primary

Secondary

Taught in the attainmenttarget “Orientation onHuman Beings andSociety/the World”

Cross-curricular themes

This target includesgeography, history,society, environmentand healthy behaviour

123

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Sweden Social studies Primary (grades 1-6)

Secondary (grades 7-9)

Part of other subjectsintegrated

855 lessons over 9 yearsof compulsory schooling

United Kingdom

England

Northern Ireland

Scotland

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Citizenship

Personal Developmentcurriculum

Personal and socialdevelopment

Religious and moraleducation

Primary

Lower secondary

Upper secondary

Secondary (age 11-16)

Primary and lowersecondary(5-14 curriculum)

Primary and lowersecondary (5-14 curriculum)

Cross-curricular as partof a non-statutory frame-work for “personal, socialand health educationand citizenship”

Cross-curricular andsubjects

Series of developmentprojects;Integrated and cross-curricular (subject areas)

Cross-curricular themes

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portugal• european union week at escola secundária/3 aurélia de

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